


FROM 



jREAT WAR 



EDNA D.JONES 




Book.. Ji . 

Copyright N". 



CO£miGRT DEPOSm 



PATRIOTIC PIECES 

FROM 

THE GREAT WAR 




COMPILED BY 
EDNA D. JONES 



THE PENN PUBLISHING 
COMPANY PHILADELPHIA 

1918 



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COPYRIGHT 
19 18 BY 
THE PENN 
PUBLISHING 
COMPANY 




CCT3! 19/8 

Patriotic Pieces Prom the Great War 



©GLA508003 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

A PRAYER IN KHAKI .... Robert Garland 7 

^^OLDIERS OF FREEDOM . . Katherine Lee Bates 8 

MY SAILOR BOY .... Viola Brothers Shore 9 

THE QUARTERMASTER CORPS 

. . . Sergeant Wm. C, Pryor, Q. M. C, 10 

IT IS WELL WITH THE CHILD 

. A^rs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer 12 
^THE president's MESSAGE TO THE NATIONAL 

ARMY 14 

THE WORKERS Douglas Malloch 15 

BELLS OF FLANDERS . . . Dominique Bonnaud 17 

JTHE DRUMS Grif Alexander 19 

FOR FRANCE .... Florence Earle Coates 22 

NEXT YEAR Margaret Widd enter 23 

THEN GIVE us WINGS . - . . Anthony Euwer 24 

/.IN FLANDERS FIELDS . . Lt.-Col. John McCrae 27 

THE SERVICE FLAG . . . William Herschell 28 

peace with a SWORD . . Abbie Farwell Brown 30 

SQUARING OURSELVES . . . James Montague 32 

the wounded soldier in THE CONVENT . 

Frangois Coppee 34 

HARVEST IN FLANDERS . . . Louise DrtSColl 36 

HAY FEVER 38 

IN SAN FRANCISCO .... Bemadine Hilty 40 



CONTENTS 

PAGB 

/-OUR YOUTH .... Arthur Hobson Quinn 44 

THE UNFURLING OF THE FLAG 

Clara Endicott Sears 46 

MARCHING FORTH TO WAR 48 

THE SPIRIT OF '17 . . . Mary Herrick Smith 50 

IN WARTIME . . Mrs, Schuyler Van Rensselaer 55 

THE MISCREANT . . . Dr. Felix E, Schelling 56 

THE LITTLE ONE-STAR FLAG . . Damon Runyon 59 

RISE up! RISE UP, crusaders! 

Edward Van Zile 61 

JUST THINKING .... Hudson Hawley 64 

THE stars .... Agnes McConnell Sligh 66 

MY SON Dr. James D. Hughes 67 

salutatory . . . Angele Maraval-Berthoin 70 

ONLY A VOLUNTEER, Corporal Richard D. Irwin 72 

THE SAILOR-MAN . . . M. A. DeWolf Howe 73 

THE COST .... Ethel Lloyd Patterson 75 

THE EYES OF WAR Chart Pitt 78 

FILE THREE 79 

THE SOLDIER .... Christopher Morley 80 u^ 

OUR GIFT Caroline Ticknor 8 1 

ASLEEP BY THE IRISH SEA 

Elizabeth Glendenning Ring 82 

COLUMBIA COMES . . Thomas Meek Butler 83 

A nation's prayer FOR STRENGTH TO SERVE . 84 

OLD GLORY George B. Hynson 87 

SCREENS ........ W. M. Letts 88 

EFFICIENCY .... Dr. Felix E. Schelling 89 

SEVEN days' leave . . . Captain Blackall 92 

-^.,THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER — ^WITH VARIATIONS 93 

ON TO victory! .... Theodore Roosevelt 95 




CONTENTS 

PAGE 

MIZPAH Gertrude Stewart 98 

THE FLAG Dr. Felix E. Schelling lOO 

" HONEY '* DRAWS THE LINE lOI 

MARY Irene McLeod 102 

PRESIDENT Wilson's flag day address . . .106 

THE BELGIAN FLAG ....£. Cammaerts no 

fly A CLEAN FLAG .... Edgar A. Guest 112 

THE OLD ROAD TO PARADISE, TW^r^^r^f Widdemer 114 

as THEY LEAVE us . . Florence Earle Coates 1 16 

" WE ARE OF ONE BLOOD," . Rev. C. L. Mclrvine 118 

iTHE TRUMPET CALL . . . Caroline Ticknor I2I 
THE MAN WHO CAN FIGHT AND SMILE . 

Norma Bright Carson 124 

MAKERS OF THE FLAG . . . Franklin K. Lane 125 

FATHER AND SON . . . Calvin Dill Wilson 129 

THE PARADE Minna Irving 132 

THE NIGHTINGALES OF FLANDERS . . . . 

Grace Hazard Conkling 133 

TO FRANCE Edwin Curran 134 

LANGEMARCK AT YPRES . . Wilfred Campbell 136 

WHAT rs PATRIOTISM ? . . . Agnes ReppUer 141 

THE WRIST WATCH MAN . . Edgar A. Guest 146 

D SPEED OUR SOLDIERS , George Frederic Viett 148 

ORGET IT, SOLDIER ! C. F. R. I^g 

LA BASSEE ROAD Patrick MacGill 15 1 

THE NEW BANNER .... Katrina Trask 153 

THE COMB BAND Berton Braley 155 

TO THE GLORY OF THE NEEDLE I57 

FIRST U. S. SOLDIER DEAD BURIED IN FRANCE . .159 

THE HUN WITH THE GUN . . Will P. Snyder 161 
OUT OF FLANDERS . . . James Norman HqU 162 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

NO man's land J, Knight-Ad kin 165 

IN SERVICE J. E. Evans 167 

THE AMERICAN .... Hawthome Daniel 169 

CONSOLATION 1 77 

OFF DUTY Patrick MacGill 179 

LITTLE MOTHER . . . Everard Jack Appleton 18 1 

THE MOTHER ON THE SIDEWALK, Edgar A. Guest 1 83 

SINCE YOU WENT AWAY . . . AlHson Brown 185 
MARCHING AWAY .... Emma A. E. Lente 187 
THE PRAYER .... Amelia Josephine Burr 189 
ON ACTIVE SERVICE . . . Patrick MacGill 192 
THE AMERICANS COME ! . Elizabeth A. Wilbur 194 

TO A CANADIAN AVIATOR WHO DIED FOR HIS 

COUNTRY IN FRANCE, Ducan Campbell Scott 195 

..AMERICA GOES IN SINGING 197 

THE KID HAS GONE TO THE COLORS .... 

William Herschell 200 

RHEIMS .... Margaret Steele Anderson 202 

MATEY Patrick MacGill 205 

THE OHIO MEN Edwin Curran 206 

A CAROL FROM FLANDERS . . Frederick Niven 208 

THE RIDERS Herman Hagedorn 210 

THE CONVERSATION BOOK 214 

THE soldier's MOTHER 2l6 

IN PRAISE OF RIGHTEOUS WAR . Walter M alone 218 

YOUR LAD AND MY LAD . . Randall Parrish 221 

BOTH WORSHIPPED THE SAME GREAT NAME . . 223 



PATRIOTIC PIECES 

FROM 

THE GREAT WAR 

A PRAYER IN KHAKI 

Permission of The Outlook Company, New York City 

OLORD, my God, accept my prayer of 
thanks 
That Thou hast placed me humbly in 
the ranks 
Where I can do my part, all unafraid — 
A simple soldier in Thy great crusade. 

I pray thee, Lord, let others take command; 
Enough for me, a rifle in my hand, 
Thy blood-red banner ever leading me 
Where I can fight for liberty and Thee. 

Give others, God, the glory; mine the right 
To stand beside my comrades in the fight, 
To die, if need be, in some foreign land — 
Absolved and solaced by a soldier's hand. 

O Lord, my God, pray barken to my prayer 
And keep me ever humble, keep me where 
The fight is thickest, where, 'midst steel and 

flame. 
Thy sons give battle, calling on Thy name. 

— Robert Garland 
7 



PATRIOTIC PIECES 
SOLDIERS OF FREEDOM 

By permission of the author 

They veiled their souls with laughter 

And many a mocking pose, 
These lads who follow after 

Wherever Freedom goes; 
These lads we used to censure 

For levity and ease 
On Freedom's high adventure 

Go shining overseas. 

Our springing tears adore them 

These boys at school and play, 
Fair-fortuned years before them, 

Alas ! but yesterday. 
Divine with sudden splendor 

— Oh how our eyes were blind! — 
In careless self-surrender 

They battle for mankind. 

Soldiers of Freedom! Gleaming 

And golden they depart, 
Transfigured by the dreaming 

Of boyhood's hidden heart. 
Her lovers they confess them 

And, rushing on her foes, 
Toss her their youth — God bless them ! - 

As lightly as a rose. 

— Katharine Lee Bates 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 9 

MY SAILOR BOY 

Used by permission of the author 

I did not ask for strength to let him go 

(Although he seemed so young — still but a 
child) ; 
I did not pray for courage — God, you know — 
When down the silver street, blue clad, they 
filed. 
More than my life went with them through the 
snow, 
And yet, dear God — - you saw — I smiled — 
I smiled. 

But oh ! how shall I pass each day his door 
Where still the shadow of his presence lin- 
gers? 
How touch the things he loved to touch, 

Still warm and vibrant from his dear brown 
fingers? 
How tread the silent floors his glad feet trod, 
Day after day — unless you help me — God ! 
— Viola Brothers Shore 



lo PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THE QUARTERMASTER CORPS 

The Quartermaster Corps 
Is a non-combatin' crowd, 
An' it isn't much excitin^ 
Fer th' man who likes it loud; 
But it's got its own hard work t' do, 
An' they'd all be on th' floor 
If it wasn't for the non-combatin' 
Quartermaster Corps. 

The Quartermaster Corps 

Sheds no glory or renown, 

But it's got the grub that keeps you 

Comin' back when you are down; 

An' the Infantree an' Cavalree 

Would all be on the floor 

If it wasn't fer the non-combatin' 

Quartermaster Corps. 

The Quartermaster Corps 
Is ol' Jimmy-on-the-Spot 
When it comes to gettin' chow 
To th' line where things are hot; 
Why, the boys up in the trenches 
Would all be on the floor 
If it wasn't fer the non-combatin' 
Quartermaster Corps. 



FROM THE GREAT WAR ii 

The Quartermaster Corps 
Don't use bayonets or guns, 
But they do a mighty lot o' work 
To help clean up th' Huns ; 
So here's something to remember — 
You might all be on the floor 
If it wasn't fer the non-combatin' 
Quartermaster Corps! 

— William C. Pryor, Sgt., Q.M.C. 



12 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

IT IS WELL WITH THE CHILD 

By permission of the author and the publishers, the Atlantic 
Monthly Company, Boston 

The word has come — On the field of battle, 

dead. 
Sorrow is mine but there is no more dread. 



I am his mother. See, I do not say, 
* I was; ' he is, not was, my son. Today 
He rests, is safe, is well; he is at ease 
From pain, cold, thirst, and fever of disease, 
And horror of red tasks undone or done. 
Now he has dropped the load he bore, my son, 
And now my heart is lightened of all fears, 
Sorrow is mine and streams of lonely tears. 
But not too heavy for the carrying is 
The burden that is only mine, not his. 

At eventide I may lay down my head, 
Not wondering upon what dreadful bed 
Perchance — nay, all but certainly — he lies; 
And with the morn I may in turn arise. 
Glad of the light, of sleep, of food, now he 
Is where sweet waters and green meadows be 
And golden apples. How it was he died 
I know not, but my heart is satisfied : 
Never again of all my days shall one 
Bring anguish for the anguish of my son. 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 13 

Sorrow is mine but there is no more dread. 
The word has come — On the field of battle, 
dead. 

— Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer 



14 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE TO 
THE NATIONAL ARMY 

Washington, D. C, September 3, 1917 

To the Soldiers of the National Army : 

You are undertaking a great duty. The 
heart of the whole country Is with you. 

Everything that you do will be watched with 
the deepest Interest and with the deepest solici- 
tude, not only by those who are near and dear 
to you, but by the whole nation besides. For 
this great war draws us all together, makes us 
all comrades and brothers, as all true Ameri- 
cans felt themselves to be when we first made 
good our national Independence. 

The eyes of all the world will be upon you, 
because you are In some special sense the 
soldiers of freedom. Let It be your pride, 
therefore, to show all men everywhere not only 
what good soldiers you are, but also what good 
men you are, keeping yourselves fit and straight 
in everything and pure and clean through and 
through. 

Let us set for ourselves a standard so high 
that It will be a glory to live up to, and then let 
us live up to It and add a new laurel to the 
crown of America. 

My affectionate confidence goes with you in 
every battle, and every test. God keep and 
guide you ! _ Woodrow Wilson 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 15 
THE WORKERS 

By permission of the author 

We laid the keel of the ship that sails the waters 

of peace or war. 
We built her strong for the strongest gales, and 

big for the load she bore ! 
We made the ship and we made her great with 

the things that we put inside — 
We made the ship and we made the freight, the 

seas of the world to ride ! 

If a ship of war, then we made her guns — if a 

ship of trade, her wares! 
She's built of the bone of the working ones, and 

the blood of her flag is theirs ! 
Sailor or soldier or citizen she will carry across 

the main — 
She's made of the muscle of working men, and 

born of the worker's brain. 

The load of her deck, the grain of her hold, 

whatever her cargo be. 
Food or clothing or goods or gold, whatever 

she takes to sea. 
The sower's arm or the toiler's toil made ready 

the thing to go — 
The shop's machine or the farmer's soil or the 

forge's lusty blow! 



1 6 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

The birds of the sea must nest on land, on the 
land the birds are born; 

They must take their stores from the toiler's 
hand, they must take their wheat and corn; 

For they who sail are a mighty race, and serv- 
ing a mighty need — 

But he who stands in the Worker's place is serv- 
ing the world indeed! 

— Douglas Malloch 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 17 
BELLS OF FLANDERS 

Sunday It is In Flanders, 

And, blue as flax, the sky 
O'er plain and windmill stretches 

Its peaceful canopy. 
The bells, high in the belfries. 

Are singing blithe and gay. 
The overflowing gladness 

Of coming Holiday. 

Ring out ! Ring on ! Ring loudly 
The merry Flemish peal ! 

But suddenly there rises 

To heaven a cry of fear — 
Quick ! To the belfry, quickly I 

The ravenous horde is here. 
See them ! the crows and vultures. 

Sowers of dire alarms; 
Oh ! bells, from out your steeples 

Fling forth your call to arms ! 

Ring out ! Ring on ! Ring madly 
The valiant Flemish peal 1 

The fell sword of the troopers — 
Brief triumph shall they know — 

Upon your soil ancestral 

E'en now your sons lay low I 



1 8 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

But to the ruthless victor 

Your freedom dear you sell, 
Proud, dauntless, little nation, 
Whom only numbers quell I 

Ring out ! Ring on ! Ring sadly 
The noble Flemish peal I 

But see ! in the dark heavens 

The dawn of justice light ! 
There to the dim horizon 

The brutal horde takes flight. 
The radiant day of glory 

Day of revenge is here, 
Oh ! bells, proclaim your triumph 

With music loud and clear ! 

Ring out ! Ring on ! Ring proudly 
The free-born Flemish peal. 
— From the French of Dominique Bonnaud 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 19 
THE DRUMS 

Permission of the Evening Bulletin, Philadelphia 

Ere we wonder at his absence, let us tell a little 
truth 
Of the healthy, careless fellow who epito- 
mizes Youth. 
We will miss him from the gridiron when the 

foot ball season comes 
For he left his spirit moving to the music of the 
drums; 
For he knows that all the knowledge 
He can make his own at college 
Will not compensate him wholly for the absence 
of the drums; 
For the rat-tat-tat of drums ! 
You will miss him from the diamond, the links 
and tennis court, 
Miss the sport. 

He's been summoned by the drums ! 
By the thrilhng call of bugles, by the echoing 

report 
Of a cannon fired by Rumor where grim Death 
is doing sums; 
Doing sums with grim precision — 
Hell's subtraction and division — 
With an abacus of drums; 
Not the tiny kettle drums ; 
Not the snare, or tenor drums; 



L. 



20 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

But the drum fire of the cannon that perpetually 
strums 
With insistent shot and shell 
On the tympanum of Hell. 
But there's music in the drums 1 
There is magic in the drums ! 
There is music, there is magic, 
There is fascination tragic 
In the drums I 



For the drums are telling patriots of wrongs 

that must be righted; 
The drums are droning dirges of the lives the 
Hun has blighted; 
Of the blood that he has spilled; 
Of the babies he has killed; 
Of the retribution awful that a righteous Lord 
, has willed. 

*' Boy, we need you ! " 

Cry the drums. 
** Though we bleed you,'' 

Cry the drums. 
" Free the world as we have freed 
you!" 
Cry the drums. 
I " Boy, you're wanted ! " 

Cry the drums! 
' And, undaunted 

Here he comes! 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 21 

Hail Columbia's sons are marching! Rich and 

poor alike are chums ! 
They've been welded fast together by the magic 
of the drums ! 
By the drums ! 
By the rat-tat-tat 

Of drums! 
By the fiat flat 

Of drums ! 
By the glory that's surrounding 
Every deed of dogged pounding! 
Of the roll of honor sounding! 
Of the drums ! 

— Grif Alexander 



22 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

FOR FRANCE 

Permission of the author 

She had been stricken, sorely, ere this came; 
And now they wrote that he, her boy, was 

dead — 
Her only one ! Through blinding tears she 
read. 
Trying to see what followed his dear name. 
He had died " gloriously," the letter said, 
" Guarding the Tricolor from touch of shame 
Where raged the battle furious and wild." 
Catching her breath, she stayed despair's ad- 
vance. 
She was a mother; but, besides — a child 
Of France ! 

And after, though remembrance of past years 

Dulled not to her fond vision nor grew dim; 

Though every slightest incident of him 
Was treasured in her breast, she shed no tears. 

Her cup was full now, even to the brim, 
And for herself she knew nor hopes nor fears. 
So, toiling patiently, with noble pride 

And lifted head she met each pitying glance, 
She was the mother of a son who died — 
For France ! 
— Florence Earle Coates 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 23 
NEXT YEAR 

Permission of Everybody's Magazine, New York 

Up and down the street I know, 
Now that there is Grief and War 

All day long the people go 
As they went before ; 

But when now the lads go by — 

Careless look and careless glance — 

My heart wonders — " Which shall be 
Still next year in France? " 

When the girls go fluttering — 

Flushing cheek and tossing head — 

My heart says " Next year shall bring 
Which a lover dead? " 

Lord, let Peace be kind and fleet — 
Put an end to Grief and War; 

Let them walk the little street 
Careless as before 1 

— Margaret Widdemer 



24 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THEN GIVE US WINGS 

If wings will help our men to see 
Some Boche's belching battery, 
Unloosing from a screen of trees 
Its screeching death upon the breeze — 
Or help our giant guns to search 
With truer aim each hidden perch 
Of Teuton guns, and make them meek, 
Ere they again may chance to speak — 

If wings, O God, will do these things, 
Then give us wings. 

If great, destroying wings might stay 

Munitions in their hurried way. 

Or hold a reenforcement back 

By dropping ruin on its track. 

Or yet set free the pent-up hell 

Of depots filled with shot and shell. 

Or swiftly give eternal sleep 

To ships that prowl the nether deep — 

If wings, O God, will do these things, 
Then give us wings and still more wings. 

If fast, avenging wings might cast 
On German cities such a blast 
Of desolating death and pain 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 25 

As fell again and still again 
On England's homes — and thus awake 
The heart of pity — and so make 
An end to killing mothers, wives, 
And maiming helpless infant lives — 

If wings, O God, will do these things. 
Then give us wings, and wings and wings 
And still more wings. 

If dauntless, daring wings that dash 
O'er No-Man's Land, with shot and crash, 
Might beat back wings that would assail 
Advancing armies with their hail — 
If dauntless wings like these that ride 
O'er No-Man's Land, might turn the tide 
Of great offensive — bring about 
Allied success and Teuton rout — 

If wings, O God, will do these things, 
Then give us wings and wings and wings 
Devouring wings that cleave and soar. 
And yet more wings and more and more I 

If multitudes of wings might rise 
To blind aggression's lustful eyes, 
And render powerless every stroke 
That seeks to force the tyrant's yoke — 
If multitudes of wings might give 



26 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

Democracy a chance to live, 

And make this bloody carnage cease, 

And bring to earth a lasting peace — 

If wings, O God, will do these things. 
Then give us wings, and wings and wings. 
And still more wings arrayed to smite 
Till Vict'ry come — the hosts of light 
Beneath the sun, whose pinions shine 
Beyond our farthest battle line ! 

— Anthony Euwer 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 27 
IN FLANDERS FIELDS 

^ Permission of the Neiv York Times 

In Flanders fields the poppies blow 
Between the crosses, row on row, 
That mark our place ; and in the sky 
The larks still bravely singing fly, 
Scarce heard amidst the guns below. 
We are the dead. Short days ago 
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, 
Loved and were loved, and now we lie 
In Flanders fields. 

Take up our quarrel with the foe, 
To you from failing hands we throw 
The Torch — be yours to hold it high; 
If ye break faith with us who die, 
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 
In Flanders fields. 
— Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae 



28 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THE SERVICE FLAG 

Permission of the author 

Dear little flag in the window there, 
Hung with a tear and a woman's prayer; 
Child of Old Glory, born with a star — 
Oh, what a wonderful flag you are I 

Blue Is your star in its field of white. 
Dipped in the red that was born of fight; 
Born of the blood that our forebears shed 
To raise your mother, The Flag, o'erhead. 

And now youVe come, in this frenzied day, 
To speak from a window — to speak and say: 
" I am the voice of a soldier-son 
Gone to be gone till the victory's won. 

" I am the flag of The Service, sir; 
The flag of his mother — I speak for her 
Who stands by my window and waits and fears, 
But hides from the others her unwept tears. 

*' I am the flag of the wives who wait 

For the safe return of a martial mate, 

A mate gone forth where the war god thrives 

To save from sacrifice other men's wives. 

" I am the flag of the sweethearts true; 
The often unthought of — the sisters, too. 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 29 

I am the flag of a mother's son 

And won't come down till the victory's wonT' 

Dear little flag in the window there, 
Hung with a tear and a woman's prayer; 
Child of Old Glory, born with a star — 
Oh, what a wonderful flag you are ! 

— William Herschell 



30 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

PEACE WITH A SWORD 

By permission of the author 

^ Peace! How we love her and the good she 

brings 
On broad, benignant wings ! 
And we have clung to her, how close and long, 

While she has made us strong ! 
Now we must guard her lest her power cease, 
And in the harried world be no more peace. 
Even with a sword, 
Help us, O Lord ! 

For us no patient peace, the weary goal 

Of a war-sickened soul; 
No peace that battens on misfortune's pain. 

Swollen with selfish gain. 
Bending slack knees before a calf of gold, 
With nerveless fingers impotent to hold 
The freeman's sword. 
Not this, O Lord ! 

No peace bought for us by the martyr dead 

Of countries reeking red; 
No peace flung to us from a tyrant's hand. 

Sop to a servile land. 
Our Peace the State's strong arm holds high 

and free, 
*' The placid peace she seeks in liberty," 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 31 

Yea, *' with a sword." 
Help us, O Lord ! 

O Massachusetts ! In your golden prime. 

Not with the bribe of time 
You won her; subtle words and careful ways 

In perilous days. 
No ! By your valor, by the patriot blood 
Of your brave sons poured in a generous flood; 
Peace, with a sword ! 
Help us, O Lord! 

Bring out the banners that defied a king! 

The tattered colors bring 
That made a nation one from sea to sea 

In godly liberty. 
Unsheathe the patriot sword in time of need, 
O Massachusetts, shouting in the lead, — 
" Peace with a sword ! 
Help us, O Lord ! " 

— Abbie Farwell Brown 



32 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

SQUARING OURSELVES 

How many howled about Josephus every time a 
sailor man 

Found an unresponsive barkeep when he went 
to rush the can I 

How they growled about Josephus when com- 
manders got the news 

That the Admiral had orders for a dry and 
boozeless cruise ! 

Even such a wild teetotaller as the temperate 
T. R. 

Shouted from a thousand housetops that Jo- 
sephus went too far. 

From all quarters of the Nation excellent, well- 
meaning folk, 

Said in letters to the papers that Josephus was 
a joke. 

Poets chuckled (we among them) in all sorts of 

jibing verse 
When Josephus said that seamen might be 

brave, and still not curse. 
Never on the rolling ocean had men navigated 

ships 
Be the weather fine or dirty, without oaths upon 

their lips. 
Even Dr. Lyman Abbott had to pause and 

breathe a prayer 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 33 

For a man who said that sailors had not simply 

got to swear! 
And there swept across the Nation, North and 

South and East and West 
The unanimous conclusion that Josephus was a 

jest. 

But when Congress started peering into things 
that had to do 

With the arming of the warship and the com- 
fort of the crew, 

When grave statesmen asked him questions as 
to this and as to that 

It was noticed that Josephus answered right 
straight off the bat. 

For his drinkless, curseless navy — every unit 
— thanks to him, 

From the dreadnoughts to the cutters, is in first- 
class fighting trim. 

Now at last the pitying jesters (we among 
them) see a light, 

For the fact has dawned upon us that Josephus 
is all right! 

— James Montague 



34 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THE WOUNDED SOLDIER IN 
THE CONVENT 

What is that clanging noise I hear 
Through the still convent ringing? 

It is the carriage-ambulance 
A wounded soldier bringing. 

Upon his coat the blood-spots shine ; 

He limps — a shell has caught him - 
His gun he uses for a crutch, 

Descending, to support him. 

A veteran he, with fierce moustache — 
The triple stripes he's wearing — 

All prudes and hypocrites he loathes, 
And starts by loudly swearing. 

Well-nigh Insulting are his looks, 
With ill-bred gibes he rallies 

The novices — beneath their caps 
They blush at his coarse sallies. 

If at his side, thinking he sleeps, 
The sister breathes a prayer. 

Straightway astir he fills his pipe 
And whistles a bored air. 

What use to him their faithful watch, 
The care that never ceases? 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 35 

He knows his leg Is lost and done, 
And he'll be hacked to pieces. 

He's very angry — Let him be! 

Here no one knows impatience, 
There reigns an atmosphere that soothes 

And cows the rudest patients. 

Slow is the spell, but sure, that wields 

This band, to service given, 
With fingers soft they touch the wounds. 

And softly speak of Heaven. 

So subtle is their pious charm. 
Our grumbler soon will see it 

In his own way — and to each prayer 
Make the response, " So be it! " 

— Francois Coppee 



36 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

HARVEST IN FLANDERS 

In Flanders* fields the crosses stand — 
Strange harvest for a fertile land! 
Where once the wheat and barley grew, 
With scarlet poppies running through. 
This year the poppies bloom to greet 
Not oats nor barley nor white wheat, 
But only crosses, row by row, 
Where stalwart reapers used to go. 

In Flanders' fields no women sing, 

As once they sang, at harvesting; 

No men now come with scythes to mow 

The little crosses, row by row. 

The poppies wonder why the men 

And women do not come again ! 

In Flanders, at the wind's footfall, 
The crosses do not bend at all. 
As wheat and barley used to do 
Whenever wind went running through. 
The poppies wonder when they see 
The crosses stand so rigidly ! 

O God, to whom all men must bring 
What they have done for reckoning, 
At harvest-time what byre or bin 
Have you to put these crosses in? 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 37 

What word for men who marched to sow 
Not wheat, but crosses, row by row? 

Alas ! Our tears can never bring 
The men who came here harvesting 
And come no more! We do not know 
What way the singing w^omen go, 
Their songs all still ! But crosses stand 
Row after row in Flanders land! 

— Louise Driscoll 



38 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

HAY FEVER 

I do not wish the Kaiser ill, 
I wish him nothing that would kill, 
No bombs with neatness and dispatch 
To wipe him from life's kaffe klatch; 
No dagger thrust between his ribs, 
That would destroy His Royal Nibs; 
I would not have him swiftly die, 
That's much too good for such a guy; 
I only wish the Kaiser might 
Hay Fever get and get it right ! 

I wish the Kaiser's royal nose 

Might know the woes my poor nose knows ; 

I only wish his royal chest 

Might always feel a sore distress. 

As mine must feel until the day 

October's frost shall come our way. 

I wish the royal piece of cheese 

Might be forever doomed to sneeze. 

Death is too good for such a king. 

Hay fever would be just the thing. 

A pair of watery eyes and red. 
An aching throat and fevered lips; 
And then a nose that constant drips. 
The wish for sleep, but all in vain; 
To end one cough to cough again, 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 39 

All these are parcel of the wish 
I cherish for that royal fish, 
If I could work my will sublime, 
He'd suffer till the end of time. 



I'd never let the Kaiser die. 
Although for death he'd often cry, 
For punishment for all he's done, 
His nose it would forever run, — 
A million years on earth he'd stay 
And sneeze a million times a day. 
Sweet sleep would never find his bed, 
All night alone the floor he'd tread, 
Death is too good for such a king, 
Hay fever would be just the thing ! 

— Anonymous 



40 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

IN SAN FRANCISCO 

Permission of the author 

Aw, gee, I wisht them oV fog-horns would 
stop blowin'. Sounds just like some one 
moanin'; an' gosh, I feel blue enough to-night 
without them howlin' around down there. 

I ain't never been no Jane for showin' 
feelin's. I've always had the sand to buck It 
off. But aw, to-night I'm wopped between the 
lamps. I got to git this off my chest — It's 
jlst bustin' me. Don't get me wrong. I ain't 
no weak mouth; but I ain't got no mother, 
never had no father, ain't got nobody to spill 
to — But he left to-night — had to beat It 
to France or somewhere wid de army. Course 
I knowed he was billed to go sometime, but 
ain't It funny you don't seem to feel it In your 
bones that they are sure goln' till — bang I 
They're gone. 

To-night Sam came steppin' up. That's his 
name — Sam. Gosh, I just love that name. 
Well, Sam comes up. Gee! you ought to see 
Sam; he Is the grandest lookin' guy you ever 
lamped — all shoulders an' no waist. Say, 
all the skirts on de coast wuz crazy for him, 
an' gosh, he grabs me an' sticks. 

Well, Sam he comes up an' says, " Honey 
kid, I's got some headlines in big print. To- 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 41 

morrow we are off for de big fight. We've 
bin called into service." 

"Aw, Sam — Sam honey, to-morrow?" I 
says. 

Then I felt myself kinda slippin', so I put on 
the brakes. I ain't no sob artist like them 
swell dames up the drag. It's a bunch of nerve 
an' grit I's got. We set down an' chewed the 
rag about things; then he sed: 

" Honey kid, I guess there ain't much chanst 
of me gittin' back; this ain't no joy ride we're 
goin' on. We're goin' to lick them Germans, 
an' we ain't comin' back till we do. I ain't 
never had no yellow streak, so I'm there to the 
last ditch. 

" Now, listen, darlin'. I want you to 
promise Sam somethin'. You ain't like the 
roughnecks around here. Now, kid, don't go 
sinkin' down wid them. Gosh, when I'm gone 
they ain't goin' to be nobody to look after you, 
honey, so you gotta buck in an' do it yerself. 
'Tain't gonna be no soft job. This ain't no 
ladies' seminary round here, an' there's always 
a lot of rough guys hornin' in. You jist hang 
onto that grit of yours, an' you'll be there a 
million. Maybe the ol' luck will fasten on me 
an' I'll get back all together." 

Gosh! I couldn't hang on any longer, so I 
turned her loose. I jist bawled like a brat. 



42 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

I tried to laugh an' tell him I'd be all to the 
hunky when he wuz away, but I didn't git along 
very well through the waterfall. 

Purty soon Sam slid down offa the couch on 
his knees by me, wid his head in my lap. His 
big shoulders were jist shakin', an' he said: 

" May, darlin', when I'm gone, I wisht at 
night, before yer go to yer pallet, you would 
try an' say a little prayer fer me. Will you, 
baby? You've been all the happiness an' sun- 
shine I've ever had." 

An' I says: " Sam, I ain't never heard no 
swell prayers, an' I don't know the real way 
they do it; but If God will listen to me say it 
my own way, without no frills or fancy kneelln', 
oh gosh, Sam, I'll beg Him to take care of yer, 
darhn'." 

Then I pulled him up, an' I sat on his lap. 
We tried to kid a little — you know, when your 
heart Is achin', you try to act it ain't at all. 

Purty soon I thought of somethin'. On my 
finger I had a ring — no sets or glass : jist a big 
ring wId a lot of carvln's on It. It wuz my 
mother's — I ain't never had It off, hungry or 
no hungry. But I took It oft my mit, an' 
slipped It on Sam's little finger, an' sed: " Sam 
darlin', I want you to wear this H'l ring of 
mine; an' at night, when yer down in them 
trenches in * No Man's Land,' an' you're feelin' 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 43 

purty lonesome, just touch this li'l ring, an' you 
will know I am wid you, kid, lovin' you an' 
thinkin' about my Sam." 

He kissed the li'l ring — gosh ! it wuz regu- 
lar Francis X. an' Mary Pickford stuff; only 
dis wuz the real thing; we wuz jist about 
breakin' our hearts in that li'l sketch. 

Then Sam looked at the Big Ben an' sed, 
" Gosh, I gotta be goin', honey." 

We walked over to the door. He put his 
arms around me, not sayin' a word, an' kissed 
me jest as silent, then quick he turns an' says: 
" So long, honey," an' wuz gone. 

I stood an' watched him; but this ramble- 
shackle palace ain't set in grounds, so I could 
only see him goin' down the hall. 

I ain't much fer size — never weighed a 
hundred in my life: jist a li'l rat, — but I've 
got to stick out my chest an' buck up. But be- 
fore I git so fresh wid myself I'm goin' to have 
a good ol' bawl all to myself, an' I'm not goin' 
to leave none fer to-morrow. I'm gonna go 
down to de water early in de mornin', an' I 
might lamp 'em when they're sailin' away. 
None of de gang has never saw me bawl yet, 
an' they ain't agoin' to now. 

Gosh ! I wisht them ol' fog-horns would stop 
blowin' : they'd make any guy shaky. 

— Bernadine Hilty 



44 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

OUR YOUTH 

Permission of the author 

Once more, once more Into the fire they go, 
With their dreamed and their undreamed 
deeds of the coming years 
Put to the chance of a shell or a bayonet's 
blow — 
With a smile in their eyes made bright by a 
touch of tears, 
And a laugh on their lips they have gone to 
meet our foe ! 

Once more the flag that they love floats proudly 
on ahead 
Which never on land or sea has known de- 
feat 

And the voices that rise from the unforgotten 
dead 
Sing the great song that lifts at the marching 
feet. 

That it ever has flung its folds where Freedom 
led I 

To-day they fight for a freedom newly born, 
For the earth is weary of kings and the 

spawn of kings. 
And out of the throes of a world with anguish 

torn 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 45 

Shall rise a peace no glory of conquest 
brings, 
Like the peace that came to the earth on 
Christmas morn. 

For this they fight and not for an inch of land 
Or the dollars wrung from a foe by the cards 
of state ! 
Thank God he has placed at our helm a stead- 
fast hand 
And an eye that can look unmoved on the 
face of Fate 
And a will that can dare and a heart that can 
understand! 

He has sent our best to the world's last great 
crusade, 
They shall not come back till the world at 
last is free ! 
For the Old World calls to the New, and, un- 
afraid. 
Our youth go forth to their fame and their 
agony, 
For God will judge in the end, and His price be 
paid! 

— Arthur Hobson Quinn 



46 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THE UNFURLING OF 
THE FLAG 

Permission of the author 

There's a streak across the sky line 

That Is gleaming in the sun, 
Watchers from the light-house towers 
Signaled it to foreign Powers 

Just as daylight had begun, 
Message thrilling, 
Hopes fulfilling 

To those fighting o'er the seas. 
" It's the flag we've named Old Glory 

That's unfurling to the breeze." 

Can you see the flashing emblem 

Of our Country's high ideal? 
Keep your lifted eyes upon it 
And draw joy and courage from it, 

For it stands for what is real. 
Freedom's calling 
To the falling 

From oppression's hard decrees. 
It's the flag we've named Old Glory 

You see floating in the breeze. 

Glorious flag we raise so proudly, 

Stars and stripes, red, white and blue, 
You have been the inspiration 
Of an ever-growing nation 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 47 

Such as this world never knew. 
Peace and Justice, 
Freedom, Progress, 
Are the blessings we can seize 
When the flag we call Old Glory 
Is unfurling to the breeze. 

When the cry of battling nations 

Reaches us across the space 
Of the wild tumultuous ocean, 
Hearts are stirred with deep emotion 
For the saving of the race ! 
Peace foregoing. 
Aid bestowing. 
Bugles blowing. 
First we drop on bended knees. 
Then with shouts our Grand Old Glory 
We set flaunting to the breeze ! 

— Clara Endicott Sears 



48 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

MARCHING FORTH TO WAR 

Permission of the Chicago Examiner, Chicago 

It was grand to be a soldier and go swinging 

down the street 
With a crowd of cheering children throwing 

flowers at your feet, 
While the girls along the sidewalk waved to 

you a fond good-by, 
And the prettiest of them, maybe, had a tear 

drop in her eye. 
Bands were playing, flags were waving, when 

the army marched away, 
It was glorious and thrilling, but it's pretty grim 

to-day. 



Down the streets you file at midnight, not a soul 

to see or hear. 
Not a strain of martial music, not a flutter not a 

cheer. 
No one there to breathe a blessing on the cause 

you go to fight. 
Or to wish you all the glory of a battle for the 

right. 
Gloom and silence all around you, gloom and 

silence on before. 
Ah! it sure does take a hero thus to march away 

to war. 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 49 

It was fine to be a soldier, when the ship sailed 

down the bay, 
And the shores were filled with people come to 

watch you sail away. 
How the whistles shrieked and shouted on the 

boats that passed you by. 
How the echoing farewell salvos rose until they 

reached the sky. 
How you thought of deeds of valor as you 

watched the vessel's bow 
Cut the waves that tumbled seaward. Ah I 

It's grimmer business now. 

In the darkness of the morning, just before the 

break of dawn, 
On the silent decks you huddle as the vessel 

hurries on. 
One by one you see the fading of the lights 

along the shore, 
And you hear the swash and rustle of the water, 

nothing more. 
Like an exile you must stand there and look out 

across the foam. 
Ah! it takes a heart of iron thus to sail away 

from home. 



so PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THE SPIRIT OF '17 

Used by permission of the Atlantic Monthly, Boston 

En route from Fort Ethan Allen, Vermont, 
to Detroit, whither my husband was ordered 
to join his base hospital, we were delayed in 
Ithaca, New York. While waiting in the hotel 
lounge, I chanced to overhear an interesting 
conversation. 

I had noticed a fine-looking man near me, 
reading the morning paper: he was distinctly 
the very prosperous city business man, his well- 
kempt appearance bespoke culture, money, and 
intelligence. While I was occupied with my 
speculations about him, a young man, just a 
boy, in fact, came in. He was a well-set-up 
chap, with the fresh healthy skin and clear-eyed 
eagerness of a country lad. He had never been 
far from the up-country farm where they raised 
the best breeds of livestock. He couldn't have 
given a college yell to save his life, and he was 
innocent of fraternity decorations and secrets. 
Just the kind of boy I would like to have call 
me " mother." His clothes were good, but 
evidently from the general store of the small 
town. He carried a good-sized box, which he 
put across his knees as he seated himself. I 
knew that it was his luncheon which mother 
had packed, and that it included fried chicken 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 51 

and cold home-made sausage, cakes, sand- 
wiches, fried cakes, crullers, mince pie and 
cheese, apples and winter pears; and a few 
relishes besides. Why, I could smell the 
luncheon that my mother had put up for my 
brother forty years ago. 

The Boy gazed all around, took in each de- 
tail of the room and its furnishings, with all 
the quiet dignity and interest of a well-born 
American country youth. You know a real 
Yankee country boy isn't like any other; there 
is a balance, an understanding, that is natural. 
It is inborn to be at home in any surrounding, 
however new and strange, so long as it is real. 

After the Boy had surveyed the room, he 
looked over at the man reading. He sat per- 
fectly still a few minutes, then " Oh hummed," 
and waited again, and fidgeted a bit; but no- 
body spoke. I could see that he was fairly 
bursting with news of something. Finally, to 
the man, " Can you tell me how far it is to 
Syracuse, sir? " 

"Well," — lowering his paper, — "not ex- 
actly, but three or four hours, I'd say. Going 
to Syracuse? " 

" Yes, I've enlisted. I passed one examina- 
tion, but I'm going to Syracuse for another and 
then I'm going to Spartansburg. Senator 
Wadsworth says, and it looks that way to me, 



52 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

that It Is just as much our fight as theirs, and 
we ought to have been In It three years ago; 
they are getting tired over there. I'd hate to 
be drafted. I'd feel mean to think I had to be 
dragged In; besides I want to do my part. 
Every fellow ought to get Into It." 

" What part of the service did you elect? " 

*' The Infantry, sir. I'm going to Spartans- 
burg to the tralnlng-camp." Silence for some 
moments; then, showing that his bridges were 
burned, "I've sold my clothes; sold 'em for 
four dollars and I'm to send 'em right back 
Boon's I get my uniform. I hope I don't have 
to wait for the soldier clothes. I think I got 
a good bargain and so did the fellow I sold 
'em to. I thought I wouldn't need 'em while 
I was In the army, and when I got back they'd 
be all out of style ; and then — I may never 
come back." A ripple of seriousness passed 
over his boyish face. '' But It was a good 
chance and I took it. Have you a son, sir?" 

** Yes, I have a son just eighteen, at Cornell. 
He expects to go next year If they need him in 
the aviation." 

" I'm just nineteen. I thought I'd better en- 
list. It's just possible they might draft 'em 
later, and I just couldn't stand it to be drafted. 
Do you think I'll be able to go home for 
Thanksgiving? " he asked eagerly. 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 53 

" I wouldn't think quite so soon. You'll 
hardly get there by that time." 

" Well, I think I can go home for Christmas, 
don't you?" And a shade of anxiety crept 
into his tone. " I live up the road here a way, 
— Wellsville, you know, about forty miles. 
Don't you think I'll get to Syracuse to-night 
if I go right on? I'd like to get through so I 
could be ready for work to-morrow morning. 
I don't want to waste any time now that I'm 
all ready." 

The Boy settled back with a look of forced 
patience, and the man held up his paper again; 
but I could see that he was not reading, and 
there was a look of suffused sadness in his face. 

The Boy had taken from his pocket a pair 
of big, dark-blue, home-knitted mittens ; on the 
palms was sewn red woolen to reenforce them. 
He carefully drew them on, folded his hands, 
thumbs up, on his luncheon-box, edged to the 
front of his chair, and sat thinking with eyes 
fixed on the far-away places of his dream. He 
was going over it all again; there was no haste, 
no excitement, no foolish sentiment, but sure 
determination and the courage of youth sud- 
denly turned to manhood. With a little start 
he came back to the present, and, rising, said, 
" I guess I'd better be going. You said I could 
get a train in about half an hour? " 



54 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

" Before you go, will you tell me, my boy, 
why you chose the Infantry? " 

*' Well, when you read of anything real hard 
that has to be done you will notice that it is 
always the infantry that does it. They have 
to be strong, young fellows they can depend on 
for the real hard things. So I chose the in- 
fantry, sir." 

There was a silence, which he broke with the 
quiet words, " I think I'll be going. Good-by, 
sir." 

Springing from his chair, the man grasped 
the boy's hand. " God bless you, son, and 
good luck! " 

With misty vision we both stood and 
watched him out of sight; then, with all 
previous convention of acquaintance forgotten 
as we looked into each other's eyes, the man 
said, ^' It is the spirit of '17 gone to the colors." 
— Mary Herrick Smith 



FROM THE GREAT WAR SS 
IN WARTIME 

By permission of the author 

Long years I longed for them, for the young 

faces, 
The golden hearts, that other women fold 
Securely in their hands' and hearts' em- 
braces — 
I, empty-hearted with no hand to hold. 

But now, but now — surely I am the one 
Who sleeps in peace knowing she hath no 
son. 

The summoning flag unfurled has stilled the 

aching 
I lived with many years ; the drum, the fife, 
Bid me be glad that for their pitiless taking 
I have no treasure of young golden life. 

And yet, and yet — last night I lay awake, 
I had no peace for other women's sake. 

The flying flag shows dimly through their weep- 
ing, 
But in their voices sounds the bugle's voice. 
While I, with no young gold for gift or keep- 
ing, 
Sit by my empty coffers and rejoice. . . . 
Not so, not so — to-night I am the one 
Who cannot sleep for that she gives no 
son. 
— Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer 



S6 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THE MISCREANT 

By permission of the author 

It was a slender Belgian lad, 

A child to make a father glad, 

Negligent, he stood beside 

The highway, stretching white and wide; 

Thence had come but yesterday 

The Uhlans riding on their way; 

And now was heard, in steady beat, 

A rising sound of marching feet. 

They came, a mass of gray pulsating. 

Steady-moving, palpitating. 

On with unrelenting tread: 

Spiked the helmet on each head, 

Straight each gun, each eye, each stride. 

Each belt, each knapsack coincide, 

A bayonet rattled at each side. 

The word rang, " Halt," and at the sound 

The rifle butts thud on the ground. 

" Come here, my boy," the Captain cried, 

" Last night, a certain Belgian died; 

And why, would'st know? that Belgian lied. 

Now, tell me, thou, and tell me true — 

Lest such a fate befall thee, too — 

Look squarely at me, hold thee still : 

Lie Belgian troops on yonder hill? " 

The boy nor flinched nor caught his breath, 



FROM THE GREAT IV AR 57 

He knew a glorious lie meant death, 

But looked the Captain in the eye 

And said, " Nay, none are there, or nigh.'* 

The conclusion of my story 

Comes from a letter amatory. 

Which one Fritz, in school-boy hand, 

Wrote Gretchen in the Fatherland. 

" Wouldst believe it, Gretchen, that boy lied; 

The little traitor ! he defied 

Our Kaiser and the German race ! 

Dear me ! that thoughts so black and base 

Should harbor in so sweet a face ! " 

And then Fritz told in close detail, 

With many an expletive and wail, 

How his company was mauled 

By Belgian guns. What else he scrawled, 

I spare the reader, both his fight 

And courtship. He concludes : 

" That night 
We stood that boy against a wall, — 
It was a church, as I recall. 
He would not let us bind his eyes 
Or tie his hands. We looked for cries, 
For tears and pleadings for reprieve; 
But not a word said he, save ' Vive 
La Belgique ! ' Now could mind conceive 



58 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

Act more un-German! Could one believe 
Such guilt to Kaiser and to God I 
'Twas I, dear, led the shooting squad. 
We fired — we all are steady-eyed — 
And so the little miscreant died." 

Thus wrote Fritz, in school-boy hand. 
To Gretchen in the Fatherland. 
If such be miscreants, what would I, 
Or thou do, so to live, so die? 

As for Fritz, there is no pother; 
That precious piece of " cannon-fodder " 
Was shot while looting with red hand: 
And Gretchen weeps in the Fatherland. 

— Dr. Felix E. Schelling 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 59 
THE LITTLE ONE-STAR FLAG 

By permission of the author 

Oh, I used to hear the family 

In the house across the way — 
A father, and a mother, and a child. 

And, oh, the noise they used to make; 

They'd keep the neighborhood awake — 
I sometimes used to think they'd drive me wild I 

I glanced across the way the other day; 

It seemed too quiet over there, by far. 
And hanging in the window of the house across 
the way 

Is a little flag which bears a single star I 

There's a Service Flag in Broadway, 
And it flaunts two thousand stars. 

Oh, it swings there to the glory 
Of the soldiers and the tars. 

But no star there in its beauty 

Tells of stronger Love and Duty 

Than the little one-star flag across the way. 

Oh, I used to see them waiting 

In the house across the way — 
The mother, and a little girl, so sweet. 

And, oh, the way they used to shout; 

And, oh, the way they'd hurry out 
When they saw Daddy coming up the street. 



6o PATRIOTIC PIECES 

Now I miss the noise they made there as they 

played; 
It seems too quiet over there by far — 
Oh, they're watching from the window of the 

house across the way 
By the little flag that bears a single star 1 

There's a Wonder Flag in Wall Street, 

Flying from a dizzy height, 
Like a gorgeous patch of heaven 

That was ripped from starry night. 
But no star there in its beauty 
Tells of stronger Love and Duty 

Than the little one-star flag across the way! 

— Damon Runyon 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 6i 
RISE UP! RISE UP, CRUSADERS! 

By permission of the author 

Never In all the scarlet past 

Since God first placed the suns, 

Not when the Goths drank deep of blood, 

And women feared the Huns, 

Not when the hordes of Attila 

Made toys of flame and shame, 

Came call so clear 

For them to hear 

Who'd fight In Freedom's name. 

Rise up ! rise up, crusaders, to meet the hosts 

of Hell! 
They prate of Art and Science but they give us 

shot and shell ; 
They call on God, blaspheming, as they plunge 

their hands in gore; 
They've butchered millions, millions, and 

they'd butcher millions more. 

What hold they dear who dare the race 
To meet the might they wield? 
The smile upon a baby's face? 
The maid who would not yield? 
The faith that men and nations keep 
When sacred vows are made? 
Why, then, should Europe's women weep? 
Why preach we our crusade ? 



62 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

Rise up ! rise up, ye stalwart, to save a world 
from woe ! 
The Hun is growing boastful. We must give 
him blow for blow. 

Where Goths and Vandals wake again 
From sleep that's ages long 
There's madness in the souls of men, 
And murder in their song. 
They are not men as men are known 
To human hearts alone, 
Their music is a woman's wail, 
Or dying hero's groan. 
They crave a world's dominion, 
And they come, a wanton flood, 
To drown the hope that God gives man 
In seas of human blood. 

Rise up! rise up, crusaders! 

Send forth a clarion cry ! 

The race shall not be slaves to Huns 

Though you and I must die. 

A world at war? 

A billion men who arm and fight and slay? 

What are our blaring bugles for? 

Is Man insane to-day? 

Not we to whom the call has come, 
Not we, the unafraid. 

Now arming, God be with us, for the last, the 
great Crusade; 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 63, 

Nor they who fight our fight with us, 
Across the surging sea, 
Where men are facing madmen 
That all peoples may be free. 

— Edward Van Zile 



64 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

JUST THINKING 

Standin' up here on the fire-step, 

Lookin' ahead in the mist, 
With a tin hat over your ivory 

And a rifle clutched in your fist; 
Waitin' and watchin' and wond'rin' 

If the Hun's comin' over to-night — 
Say, aren't the things you think of 

Enough to give you a fright? 

Things you ain't even thought of 

For a couple o' months or more; 
Things that'll set you laughin' 

Things that 'ull make you sore; 
Things that you saw in the movies, 

Things that you saw on the street. 
Things that you're not really proud of, 

Things that are — not so sweet. 

Debts that are past collectin\ 

Stories you hear and forget. 
Ball games and birthday parties, 

Hours of drill in the wet; 
Headlines, recruitin' posters. 

Sunsets 'way out at sea. 
Evenings of pay days — Golly — 

It's a queer thing, this memory I 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 65 

Faces of pals in homeburg, 

Voices of women folk, 
Verses you learnt in school days 

Pop up in the mist and smoke 
As you stand there grippin' that rifle, 

A-starin', and chilled to the bone, 
Wonderin' and wonderin' and wonderin', 

Just thinkin' there — all alone ! 

When will the war be over? 

When will the gang break through? 
What will the U. S. look like? 

What will there be to do? 
Where will the Boches be then? 

Who will have married Nell? 
When's that rehef a-comin' up? 

Gosh ! But this thinkin's hell ! 

— Hudson Hawley 



66 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THE STARS 

Can it be possible that these same stars, 
That smile in heavenly beneficence 
Upon the dewy reaches of the fields, 
And shadows of the quiet, sleeping woods. 
Shine, too, on Europe's throes of agony? 
Yea, even so, and God be thanked 'tis so, — 
On War's red death the quiet stars look down 
And on the trenches clear Orion beams 
As fair as o'er the spires of Coventry; 
Some lonely lad from Normandy, perchance, 
Or son of far America, may catch 
With dying eyes the twinkling Pleiades, 
And see in them the old sweet walks of home; 
Antares' gleam, Capella's golden light 
Speak but one tongue, need no interpreter: 
But more, to every doubting heart they speak. 
While empires rock, and earth and air and sea 
Drink heedlessly the priceless blood of youth, — 
God still His watch must keep; the stars still 
shine 1 

— Agnes McConnell Sligh 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 67 

MY SON 

God gave my son in trust to me; 
Christ died for him, and he should be 
A man for Christ. He is his own, 
And God's and man's; not mine alone. 
He was not mine to " give." He gave 
Himself that he might help to save 
All that a Christian should revere, 
All that enlightened men hold dear. 

" To feed the guns! " O torpid soul! 
Awake, and see life as a whole. 
When freedom, honor, justice, right, 
Were threatened by the despot's might, 
With heart aflame and soul alight, 
He bravely went for God to fight 
Against base savages, whose pride 
The laws of God and man defiled; 
Who slew the mother and her child, 
Who maidens pure and sweet defiled. 
He did not go " to feed the guns," 
He went to save from ruthless Huns 
His home and country, and to be 
A guardian of democracy. 

" What if he does not come? " you say; 
Ah, well ! My sky would be more gray, 
But through the clouds the sun would shine, 






68 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

And vital memories be mine. 
God's test of manhood is, I know, 
Not " Will he come? " but " Did he go? 
My son well knew that he might die, 
And yet he went, with purpose high, 
To fight for peace, and overthrow 
The plans of Christ's relentless foe. 

He dreaded not the battle-field; 

He went to make fierce vandals yield. 

If he comes not again to me 

I shall be sad; but not that he 

Went like a man — a hero true — 

His part unselfishly to do. 

My heart will feel exultant pride 

That for humanity he died. 

" Forgotten grave ! " This selfish plea 
Awakes no deep response in me. 
For, though his grave I may not see. 
My boy will ne'er forgotten be. 
My real son can never die ; 
'Tis but his body that may lie 
In foreign land, and I shall keep 
Remembrance fond, forever, deep 
Within my heart of my true son 
Because of triumphs that he won. 
It matters not where any one 
May lie and sleep when work is done. 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 69 

It matters not where some may live ; 

If my dear son his life must give, 

Hosannas I will sing for him, 

E'en though my eyes with tears be dim. 

And when the war is over, when 

His gallant comrades come again, 

I'll cheer them as they're marching by, 

Rejoicing that they did not die. 

And when his vacant place I see 

My heart will bound with joy that he 

Was mine so long — my fair young son -^ 

And cheer for him whose work is done. 

— Dr. James D. Hughes 



70 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

SALUTATORY 

Our honor 'tis who stay behind — 

Soldiers of France's glory — 
To hail with strengthening words and kind 
The men that march the foe to find, 
And rout him from our hallowed soil 
That groans with pain of his despoil — 
His menace gory. 

Our honor 'tis to hold you dear, 

War-men of skill and soul; 
The old, the young, alike revere — 
Men faring forth who smile at fear. 
While earth itself returns with dread 
The echo of their martial tread 
Toward triumph's goal. 

Our honor 'tis to nurse you well — 

Soldiers of newer glory — 
To bind your wounds and soothe your brow, 
Who little dreamed to add as now 
By faith and nerve the valorous meed 
Of high, unselfish, mighty deed 
To France's story . 

Our honor 'tis to give our tears — 
Soldiers that lie at rest! 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 71 

Smiles we give, too, and cheering glance 
With farewell kiss, while saddened France 
To men asleep in reddened fields 
The peace unending gently yields 
Of Heaven's blest. 

— Angele Maraval-Berthgin 



72 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

ONLY A VOLUNTEER 

Permission of the author and the Independent, Kansas City- 
Why didn't I wait to be drafted 
And led to the train with a band, 
And put In a claim for exemption, 
Oh, why didn't I hold up my hand? 
Why didn't I wait for a banquet, 
Why didn't I wait for a cheer; 
Why didn't I wait to be drafted 
Instead of a volunteer? 

And nobody gave me a banquet, 

Nobody said a kind word; 

The puff of the engine. 

The grind of the wheels. 

Was the only good-by I heard. 

Then off to the camp I hustled 

To be trained for the next half year, 

And In the shuffle forgotten; 

I was only a volunteer. 

Perhaps some day In the future, 
When my little boy sits on my knee 
And asks what I did in the Great War, 
And his little eyes look up at me, 
I will have to look back into those eyes 
That at me so trustingly peer 
And tell him I wasn't drafted, 
I was only a volunteer. 

— Corporal Richard D. Irwin 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 73 
THE SAILOR-MAN 

Permission of Life, New York 

I like the look of khaki and the cut of army 

wear, 
And the men of mettle sporting it, at home and 

over there; 
But there's something at the heart-strings that 

tautens when I meet 
A blue-clad sailor-man adrift, on shore-leave 

from the fleet. 

From flapping togs his sea-legs win some tinge 

of old romance 
That's proper to the keeper of the paths that 

lead to France; 
For what were all the soldiers worth that ever 

tossed a gun 
Without the ships and sailor-men to pit them 

'gainst the Hun ! 

There's sunlight now and steady ground be- 
neath the sailor's tread, 

And every pleasure beckons him, and every 
snare is spread; 

Speed well this visitor, whose home 'twixt heav- 
ing decks is set, 

Whose playmates are the darkness, and the 
bitter cold, and wet ! 



74 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

His comrades these; his foe is ours, the foe of 

law and right, 
The stealthy, murderous German " fish," that 

prowls and kills by night; 
And none may sink him where he swims, flout- 
ing God's age-built plan. 
None but the guardian of us all, the rolling 

sailor-man. 
His hands are often cruel cold; his heart is 

oftener warm. 
For in its depths he knows 'tis he that shields 

the world from harm; 
Because I know it too, my heart beats warmer 

when I meet 
A blue-clad sailor-man adrift, on shore-leave 

from the fleet. 

— M. A. DeWolfe Howe 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 75 
THE COST 

Permission of Everybody's Magazine, New York 

Six o'clock when the homeward traffic of a 
city Is heaviest from shops and offices. The 
street was crowded with people who, in their 
rush, bumped heedlessly against each other. 
Some smiled. Some went with fixed faces like 
masks. Motor-horns and car-bells blared and 
clanged in a medley of impatient sound. 
Through It all I wove my way — a little shuttle 
traihng my one frail thread through the pattern 
of the whole. 

Then I heard him bawling of the wares he 
sold. 

*' Here you are!" he cried, his mouth In- 
credibly big and twisted. "Here you are! 
Buy the American colors! Red! White! 
Blue ! The colors that never run ! Be a 
patriot! Buy your little Service-pin! Here 
you are ! " 

I stopped before him. 

" How much are the Service-pins? " I asked. 

" How many stars do you want on It? " said 
he, plunging his hand into the bag of them 
strung round his neck with a strap. 

*' Three," I told him proudly. 

He held out the pin to me — a white square 
rimmed with red, three blue stars on Its field; 



76 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

each star for one man of my blood who risks 
his life for America. 

" It costs fifteen cents," said he; "a nickel 
a star." 

Through a sort of haze I stared at him. 
"Fifteen cents!" he had said. "A nickel a 
star." 

And suddenly I seemed to see the oldest of 
the three : a desk-bound man with straight and 
pleasant lips and the comfortable ways of one 
who is happy among simple things. There 
had been no yearning for adventure, no rest- 
lessness. Yet how quickly he had gone just 
the same. Like a child, who hears a loved one 
calling him, he had closed his books and risen 
to answer — at once. One long look into 
steady eyes very like his own. Only one ques- 
tion: *' You want me to go. Mother? " And 
the cry in answer: " My boy! " 

And the other one — the second; he who is 
so gentle that babies nod wisely at him, as 
though there were some secret between them. 
I remember the winter's night he brought the 
stray kitten home and fed it with warm milk, 
drop by drop. Already his comrades in the 
Signal Corps complain because his horse fol- 
lows him inside their tent. A man so generous 
that his touch holds a kind of healing. Yet 
he too has gone — to kill ! Gone with the 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 77 

warmth of his heart blazing white hot from his 
eyes. When last I saw him, it seemed to me 
he was an arrow strung back on the bow to the 
head. The change in him! 

Then the last to go — the youngest, the tall- 
est, the straightest ; his brows a little knit — 
puzzled — not wholly understanding this 
thing that told him to put his boyhood behind 
him and become, too soon, a man. Still, eager, 
frightened, and very brave — he went. 

These stars of mine "A nickel a piece; 
The three of them for fifteen cents ! " I 
thought I laughed. But maybe not, for 
through the dusk the vender peered at me 
strangely. Then — 

" Can't pay? " he asked. *' Too much? " 

I fastened my Service-pin to my breast. 

*' No," I said. " I can pay. It costs a lot, 
but — not too much." 

— Ethel Lloyd Patterson 



78 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THE EYES OF WAR 

Permission of the author 

Like a gauzy speck in the pearling dawn, 

We drift through the silent skies, 
Over No-Man's-Land, where the smoke balls 
spawn 

And the deadly gases rise. 
We mark the spot where the battery stands — 

Where sappers toil in the trench-scarred 
height. 
We map each mile of a hostile land, 

Where millions writhe in battle-blight. 

No silvery bugle to speed our flight. 

Nor the flutter of banners gay; 
Not a war steed's stamping for the fight, 

As we rise at break of day. 
Only the song of the wind in the planes — 

A thrill that lives in the day-dawn's glow — 
A shifting vision of country lanes. 

That wave like ribbons below. 

— Chart Pitt 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 79 
FILE THREE 

File Three stood motionless and pale, 

Of nameless pedigree; 
One of a hundred on detail — 

But would I had been he ! 

In years a youth, but worn and old, 

With face of ivory; 
Upon his sleeve two strands of gold — 

Oh, would I had been he ! 

The General passed down the line, 

And walked right rapidly. 
But saw those threads and knew the sign — 

Oh, where was I, File Three! 

"Twice wounded? Tell me where you 
were." 

The man of stars asked he. 
*' Givenchy and Lavenze, sir " — 

Oh, where was I, File Three ! 

Then crisply quoth the General: 
" You are a man, File Three." 

And Tommy's heart held carnival — 
God! Would I had been he ! 



8o PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THE SOLDIER 

Permission of the author 

He needs no tinsel on his coat, 

No metal, star or braid; 
No outward sign of rank or worth 

To keep him unafraid. 

The soldier carries in his breast 
A living accolade — / 

The dear medallion of her face. 
The noblest medal made ! 

Her faith, her hope, her tenderness, 

Her human fear and pain 
Are like the glory on his soul 

To comfort and sustain. 

In honor and in pride he goes 

To face his duty grim ; 
Transplanted to himself, he feels 

The heart that beats for him ! 

— Christopher Morley 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 8i 
OUR GIFT 

Permission of the author 

Behold Thy sons, O Lord! 

We give them back to Thee, 

With outstretched arms and bleeding hearts, 

On bended knee. 

Wrought in Thy image, nurtured in Thy truth, 

The brave, the strong, all-glorious in youth; 

Guard this our priceless gift, in strife and 

stress, 
O Lord of Righteousness ! 

Our noblest sons, O Lord! 

We give them back to Thee. 

Use them to glorify Thy name, 

A ransom for the free. 

Yet as we give Thee back Thine own to-day. 

On bended knee with fervent hearts we pray, 

Guard Thou our valiant sons on land and sea, 

O Lord of Liberty! 

— Caroline Ticknor 



82 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

ASLEEP BY THE IRISH SEA 

Permission of the author 

To France I How many weary miles, 
Dear lads, it seemed ! but only smiles 
We flung to speed your brave Crusade, 
Why stain with tears your accolade? 

But, ah, we feared the swirling foam! 

The wail of winds that sob and moanl 

In dreams, that stirred the lonely night, 
We saw the flash of steel's white light. 
We heard the cry of men at bay. 
In anguish watched the dreadful fray. 
We saw, in dreams, the fields run red. 
We groped in fear 'mid tumbled dead. 

Gone now our hopes and dreams and fears, 
We live with grief that stabs and sears. 
Yours not the trench — the blinding flame. 
Not yours the scarlet road to fame. 

Yours but to stand, with quickened breath, 
At grave salute — to challenge Death. 

Yours but to close Life's doors, swung wide, 
And cross, with song, the Great Divide ! 
Sweetly you rest, by Larne's gray sea. 
The booming surf your threnody. 

Sleep on, brave lads! A world set free. 

Shall thy immortal guerdon be ! 

— Elizabeth Glendenning Ring 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 83 
COLUMBIA COMES 

Permission of the author 

In war's fast deepening shades Columbia stood 
And watched Democracy's descending star. 
She heard with pity Belgium's dying cry, 
Whose rape by Germany made Satan blush. 
When her own children died by German blasts 
While in their merchant ships on lawful seas, 
Columbia felt the rub of future chains, 
And saw Death write with steel his awful name 
Across the flags of all her cherished kin. 
Then Liberty's bright torch lit well her path, 
At whose far-distant end is destiny; 
She saw her Lincoln keeping anxious watch. 
And now, the troops of seventeen seventy-six. 
In battle cry, are charging in her soul. 

Presumptuous Germany 1 to make a foe 

Of her whose birth was of throne-shaking war 

That threw the Western walls of Empire down; 

Who first hitched lightning to her spacious car 

And in it pioneered the undersea; 

Who saddled first the untamed steeds of air 

And rode them at her will through lofty 

heavens; 
Whose tireless mind still cleaves new seas of 

thought ; 
Whose fearless feet still march to Freedom's 

drums. —Thomas Meek Butler 



84 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

A NATION'S PRAYER FOR STRENGTH 
TO SERVE 

Make bare thy mighty arm, O God, and lead 
this people on. 

Day by day, month after month, we have 
prayed that the cup of war might pass from us, 
for we have not been able to say thy will, not 
ours, be done. 

We have gazed with awe upon the horrors 
of the battlefields of Europe. There we have 
seen suffering and death such as the angels of 
heaven never looked down upon before; while 
here we have enjoyed the peace and prosperity 
which have flooded our land, and we have 
prayed that we might not have to give up our 
comfort and our ease and face the awful 
realities of war. We have said to our souls, 
thou hast much goods laid up, eat, drink and be 
merry and think not of duty, but of pleasure. 

We have not prayed, O God, that thou 
wouldst show us our duty and give us strength 
to follow wherever thou mightst lead, but we 
have prayed that our will might be thy will. 
We have prayed that thou wouldst save us 
from suffering, not that thou wouldst give us 
strength to meet and bear suffering if called 
by thee to do our part In saving clvUIzation 
from destruction. 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 85 

Forgive us, O Lord God Almighty, that we 
have so long prayed not to know the path of 
duty, but to be kept in the path of ease and 
safety. 

We cannot fathom the mysteries of this 
world, we cannot understand how evil can for 
so long a time master good; we cannot see 
how out of all the horrors and sufferings of 
these latter years thou canst bring forth bless- 
ings to mankind and get glory and honor unto 
thyself. But we know, O Divine Father, that 
all things shall work together for good to them 
that love and serve thee. Teach us then to 
love thee as we have never loved thee before, 
teach us to serve thee as we have never served 
thee in the past. 

We believe that thou art calling us to take 
up our cross and follow thee, and that thou 
hast called us to some great service to mankind 
and to thyself. 

Arm us, O God, with the power of right. 

Let us not go forth trusting in our own 
strength, which is but weakness. Let no spirit 
of revenge, no hatred fill our hearts, but give 
us the strength which comes from seeking to 
know and to do thy will, and from being led by 
thee. 

Grant, O Father, that we may be ready to 
drink of the cup from which thy Blessed Son, 



86 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

our Redeemer, drank, when, in boundless love 
for others, he prayed that not his will, but thine, 
be done. Draining the cup of human agony, 
he became the Savior of mankind, redeeming 
the world from the power of evil through his 
suffering, death and resurrection. He taught 
us that service and sacrifice are better than 
great riches, that he who seeks selfishly his own 
good only may lose his own soul. 

What shall it profit us as a nation to gain 
the wealth of the world and to lose the soul of 
our honor and of our duty to thee? 

If such be thy will, may it be ours as a nation 
to be led by thee to help save mankind from 
the dominion of evil. 

Give unto us, O God of infinite love, thy 
" grace, which is love outloving love," to enable 
us to say where thou leadest we will follow. 

Make us a nation, O thou Almighty Ruler 
of Nations, worthy to become the redeeming 
power to save mankind from sinking beneath 
the barbarism which fights against civilization, 
against human liberty and against thee, that all 
the nations of the earth shall come to know 
thee and to seek thy guidance through all the 
ages to come unto thy honor and glory. 



FROM THE GREAT WAP 87 
OLD GLORY 

Permission of the author 

A group of Stars on an azure field — 

There the bond of the Union stands revealed; 

With bars of red and bars of white, 

That spurn the earth and seek the light — 

'Tis the flag that men have died for ! 

That star-flecked banner marked the line 
From Bunker Hill to Brandywine; 
We fancy that its bars of red 
Proclaim the blood our grandsires shed, 
For this is the flag they died for 1 

It graced the heights of Monterey; 

It fluttered at Manila Bay. 

*' The flag is there ! " Thus ran the news 

From Pekin and from Vera Cruz — 

And this is the flag they died for ! 

Blow on o'er land; blow on o'er sea, 
O starlit banner of the free; 
Though foes abound and tyrants rave. 
Blow on, O banner of the brave ! 
And this Is the flag we'll die for. 

— George B. Hynson 



88 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

SCREENS 

They put a screen around his bed; 

A crumpled heap I saw him lie, 
White counterpane and rough dark head, 

Those screens — they showed that he would 
die. 

They put the screens around his bed; 

We might not play the gramophone, 
And so we played at cards instead 

And left him dying there alone. 

The covers on the screen were red, 

The counterpanes were white and clean; 

He might have lived and loved and wed, 
But now he's done for at nineteen. 

An ounce or more of Turkish lead, 
He got his wounds at Suvla Bay; 

TheyVe brought the Union Jack to spread 
Upon him when he goes away. 

He'll want those three red screens no more, 

Another man will get his bed; 
We'll make the row we did before 

But — Jove ! — I'm sorry that he's dead. 

— W. M. Letts 



FROM THE GREAT JVAR 89 
EFFICIENCY 

By permission of the author 
I 

For forty years he plotted, 

For forty years he planned, 
His ships on every ocean, 

His spies in every land; 
He perverted social progress, 

He exploited poor men's thrift, 
He " utilized " the princeling 

And the human wreck adrift. 
There was naught for him too trifling, 

Or too great for him to wrench. 
He corrupted press and pulpit, 

Even Justice on the bench ; 
The maid who dressed my lady 

The man who drove her car. 
The statesman in the senate, 

And the men who lead in war. 

And yet for all his well laid trains, 

For all the fires he fanned. 
For all the things he bought and sold, 

And all the plots he planned: 
He shall not pull it off, my boy. 

He can not put it through. 
He's up against a world in arms 

Of fearless men and true. 



90 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

II 

Forty years of preparation, 

All at a tyrant's will, 
For forty years, a nation 

In one eternal drill; 
His furnaces ablazing 

With case of mighty guns, 
Shipyards crammed with seacraft 

And dreadnaughts, tons on tons; 
Learn'd men concocting poison, 

Devising gun and snare, 
To ruin a friendly neighbor 

And slay him unaware. 
No enemy was moving. 

No flag of war unfurled, 
He plotted 'gainst a peaceful. 

An unsuspecting world. 

And yet for all his well-laid trains. 

For all the fires he fanned. 
For all the things he bought and sold. 

And all the plots he planned: 
He shall not pull it off, my boy, 

He can not put it through, 
He's up against a world in arms 

Of fearless men and true. 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 91 

III 

For three years now youVe beaten him, 

In sky, on earth, at sea, 
Briton, Frenchman, Belgian, 

And the men of Italy; 
He boasted he'd sack Paris, 

The Marne proved that boast vain, 
He names no more Verdun nor Somme, 

He's beaten on the Aisne. 
And now 'tis for America 

To join the valiant line. 
To run him from his cover. 

Back to the river Rhine. 
If you had plotted forty years 

To murder your nearest friend. 
What would you think if your success 

Attained no better end? 

Foiled, disgraced, bankrupt, and bled. 

Despised: now God forefend. 
If this be not for " efficiency '* 

A very sorry end. 
He shall not pull it off, my boy, 

He can not put it through. 
He's up against a world in arms 

Of fearless men and true. 

— Dr. Felix E. Schelling 



92 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

SEVEN DAYS' LEAVE 

Bravely acted, little lady; 
Bravely acted, wife of mine. 
Though I know your heart is aching 
Almost to the point of breaking, 
Not a word of what you're feeling. 
Only just a teardrop stealing. 
Such a splendid little lady, 
Such a splendid wife of mine I 

Bravely spoken, little lady; 
Bravely spoken, wife of mine. 
Just a tightening of your fingers 
While your hand in mine still lingers; 
Just " God bless and keep you, dearest; 
In my thoughts you're always nearest." 
Such a sportsman, little lady ; 
Such a sportsman, wife of mine! 

Is it fair, my little lady? 
Fair to you, O wife of mine? 
Seven days we two together. 
Then we part, perhaps forever. 
(God! those days, though only seven, 
Seemed a little glimpse of Heaven!) 
That's the question, little lady. 
Yours the answer, wife of mine. 

— Captain Blackall 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 93 

THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER — 
WITH VARIATIONS 



Oh, say, can you sing from the start to the end 
What so proudly you stand for when orchestras 

play it — 
When the whole congregation, in voices that 

blend. 
Strike up the grand hymn, and then torture and 

slay it? 
How they bellow and shout, 
When they're just starting out! — 
But " the dawn's early light " finds them 

flound'ring about 
'Tis The Star Spangled Banner they're trying to 

sing,— 
But they don't know the words of the precious 

old thing. 

II 

Hark, *' the twilight's last gleaming " has some 

of them stopped. 
But the valiant survivors press onward serenely 
To " the ramparts we watched," where some 

others are dropped. 
And the loss of the leaders is manifest keenly. 
Then *' the rocket's red glare " 



94 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

Gives the bravest a scare, 

And there's few left to face the '' bombs burst- 
ing in air " — 

'Tis a thin line of heroes that manage to save 

The last of the verse and " the home of the 
brave!" 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 95 
ON TO VICTORY! 

Our business is to exert the largest possible 
fraction of our strength at the earhest possible 
moment, and then to exert our constantly grow- 
ing strength so fast as with the utmost energy 
and efficiency we can develop it, until we win 
the peace of overwhelming victory. This war, 
so far as we are concerned, was brought on by 
German militarism and American pacifism 
working together. To let either or both of 
them dictate the peace that is to end it would 
be an immeasurable disaster. We should not 
have any negotiations with those who com- 
mitted and who glory in the Lusitania infamy, 
the rape of Belgium, and the hideous devasta- 
tion and wholesale murders and slavery in the 
conquered countries. We are fighting for the 
fundamental sanctities of life and decencies of 
civilization. We are fighting for the liberty 
of every well behaved nation, great or small, 
to have whatever government it desires and to 
live unharming others and unharmed by others. 
We are sending our troops to fight abroad so 
that they may not have to fight at home. Ger- 
many must be beaten, and the Prussianized 
militaristic autocracy of the Hohenzollerns 
humbled or the world will not be safe for 
liberty-loving peoples. We must fight this war 



96 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

through to victory no matter what the cost in 
time or money or in the blood of our bravest 
and dearest. 

The ultimate task of our young men of to- 
day is so to lead the generation now coming on 
the stage that this nation shall assure its interna- 
tional safety by grasping and acting on the 
fundamentals of duty. I sincerely believe that 
on the whole we of this nation have a little 
finer material on which to work than is true of 
any other nation; that in our land there are 
better ideals than elsewhere of the duty of men 
and women to one another, to their neighbors, 
to their country, and to the world at large. I 
do not see how any man can go through the 
camps where our army is now being trained 
without feeling a thrill of pride in the manli- 
ness, energy and resourcefulness of the men 
who are there slowly acquiring not only the 
bodies of soldiers but the feelings of patriots. 
Those camps are to-day the great universities 
of American citizenship, and we ought to make 
them permanent features of our national life. 
There could be no finer material for citizenship 
than that afforded by the men and women of 
this nation. 

Wc can be sure that our armies at the front 
and that our fleets and squadrons will do well 
and bravely, and that we shall hold our heads 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 97 

high because of their valor. Theirs is the 
great task, theirs will be the great glory. Let 
us who stay behind back them in every wayl 
— Theodore Roosevelt 



98: PATRIOTIC PIECES 

MIZPAH 

Permission of Munsey's Magazine, New York 

Oh, man o' mine in olive drab, 

So handsome, brave, and strong, 

You're bound for '* somewhere " there in 

France 
To join the fighting throng. 

Oh, man o' mine, from out your heart 
Your eye speaks brave and true ; 
You'll do your patriotic part. 
For, man o' mine, that's you ! 

For liberty you're going, man, 
And honor — therefore go ! 
But oh, my man, come back, come back, 
Because I need you so I 

One man in ten must fall they say; 
Each hour my fervent prayer 
Will seek its heavenward way to plead 
That God may guard you there. 

I know the horrors you will see ; 
I hear the bursting shell. 
But, man o' mine, you'll do your part, 
And do it more than well I 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 99 

*Tis such as you they want, my man, 
To stem the tyrants' greed; 
But oh, my man, come back, come back, 
My love, my strength, my need ! 

— Gertrude Stewart 



loo PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THE FLAG 

Pennission of the author 

some sing TIpperary, 
Some sing the Marseillaise, 

And some prefer God Save the King, 

Or other martial lays; 
Give me the Spangled Banner, 

With its stars now fifty fold, 

1 love our Spangled Banner, 

For we sang that song of old. 

Some love the brave tricolor. 

And some the Union Jack, 
Some hail the flag of Italy, 

Or the yellow, red and black; 
They're all our friends and allies, 

Stout men, alert and bold. 
But I love the Spangled Banner, 

'Tis the flag we waved of old. 

Flag of our faith and freedom. 
Flag for which we've bled ! 

Flag of our home and happiness, 

Flag of our honored dead! 

No tyrant's sword shall wound thee. 
No alien hand shall hold 

Our loved Star Spangled Banner, 
The flag we loved of old. 

— Dr. Felix E. Schelling 



FROM THE GREAT IVAR loi 
" HONEY " DRAWS THE LINE 

I've beamed when you hollered " Oh, Girlie! " 
IVe hopped when you bellowed " Oh, say! " 
I've fallen for " Dearie," and " Missus," 

And everything else till to-day. 
But there's one thing that's got to be different, 
From now till the Great War is done — 
Unless you're prepared for a riot. 

You've got to quit calling me " Hun! " 



1 02 PA TRIO TIC PIECES 

MARY 

Permission of the Yale Remeiv, New Haven, Conn. 

Mary! I'm quite alone in all the world, 
Into this bright sharp pain of anguish hurled. 
Death's plunged me deep in hell, and given me 

wings 
For terrible strange vastnesses; no hand 
In all this empty spirit-driven space; I stand 
Alone and whimpering in my soul. I plod 
Among wild stars, and hide my face from God. 
God frightens me. He's strange. I know 

Him not. 
And all my usual prayers I have forgot: 
But you — you had a son — I remember now. 
You are not Mary of the virgin brow. 
You agonized for Jesus. You went down 
Into the ugly depths for him. Your crown 
Is my crown. I have seen you in the street, 
Begging your way for broken bread and meat: 
I've seen you in trams, in shops, among old 

faces, 
Young eyes, brave lips, broad backs, in all the 

places 
Where women work, and weep, in pain, in 

pride. 
Your hands were gnarled that held him when 

he died. 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 103 

Not the fair hands that painters give you, 

white 
And slim. You never had such hands: and 

night 
And day you labored, night and day, from child 
To woman. You were never soft and mild. 
But strong-limbed, patient, brown-skinned from 

the sun, 
Deep-bosomed, brave-eyed, holy, holy One I 
I know you now! I seek you, Mary! Spread 
Your compassionate skirts; I bring to you my 
dead. 

This was my man. I bore him. I did not 

know 
Then how he crowned me, but I felt it so. 
He was my all the world. I loved him best 
When he was helpless, clamoring at my breast. 
Mothers are made like that. You'll under- 
stand 
Who held your Jesus helpless in your hand. 
And loved his impotence. But as he grew 
I watched him, always jealously; I knew 
Each line of his young body, every tone 
Of speech; his pains, his triumphs were my own. 
I saw the down come on his cheeks, with dread. 
And soon I had to reach to hold his head 
And stroke his mop of hair. I watched his 
eyes 



I04 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

When women crossed his ways, and I was wise 
For him who had no wisdom. He was young, 
And loathed my care, and lashed me with 

youth's tongue. 
Splendidly merciless, casual of age, his scorn 
Was sweet to me of whom his strength was 

born. 
Besides, when he was more than six feet tall 
He kept the smile he had when he was small. 
And still no woman had him. I was glad 
Of that — and then — O God! The world 

ran mad! 
Almost before I knew this noise was war 
Death and not women took the son I bore I 

You'll know him when you see him : first of all 
Because he'll smile that way when he was small. 
And then his eyes ! They never changed from 

blue 
To duller gray, as other children's do. 
But, like his little dreams, he kept his eyes 
Vivid, and very clear, and vision-wise. 
Seek for him, Mary ! Bright among the ghosts 
Of other women's sons he'll star those hosts 
Of shining boys. (He always topped his class 
At school.) Lean forward, Mary, as they 

pass. 
And touch him. When you see his eyes you'll 

weep 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 105 

And think him your own Jesus. Let him sleep 
In your deep bosom, Mary, then you'll see 
His lashes, how they curl, so childishly; 
You'll weep again, and rock him on your heart 
As I did once, that night we had to part. 
He'll come to you all bloody and bemired, 
But let him sleep, my dear, for he'll be tired, 
And very shy. If he'd come home to me 
I wouldn't ask the neighbors in to tea. . . . 
He always hated crowds. ... I'd let him 
be. . . . 

And then perhaps you'll take him by the hand, 
And comfort him from fear when he must stand 
Before God's dreadful throne; then, will you 

call 
That boy whose bullet made my darling fall, 
And take him in your other hand and say — 
" O God, whose Son the hands of men did slay, 
These are Thy children who do take away the 

sins of the world. . . ." 

— Irene McLeod 



io6 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

PRESIDENT WILSON'S FLAG DAY 
ADDRESS 

Washington, D. C, June 14th, 1917 

My Fellow Citizens : 

We meet to celebrate Flag Day because this 
flag which we honor and under which we serve 
is the emblem of our unity, our power, our 
thought and purpose as a nation. It has no 
other character than that which we give it from 
generation to generation. The choices are 
ours. It floats in majestic silence above the 
hosts that execute those choices, whether in 
peace or in war. And yet, though silent, it 
speaks to us — speaks to us of the past, of the 
men and women who went before us and of 
the records they wrote upon it. We celebrate 
the day of its birth; and from its birth until 
now it has witnessed a great history, has floated 
on high the symbol of great events, of a great 
plan of life worked out by a great people. We 
are about to carry it into battle, to lift it where 
it will draw the fire of our enemies. We are 
about to bid thousands, hundreds of thousands, 
it may be millions, of our men, the young, the 
strong, the capable men of the nation, to go 
forth and die beneath it on fields of blood far 
away — for what? For some unaccustomed 
thing? For something for which it has never 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 107 

sought the fire before? American armies were 
never before sent across the seas. Why are 
they sent now? For some new purpose, for 
which this great flag has never been carried be- 
fore, or for some old, famlHar, heroic purpose 
for which It has seen men, its own men, die on 
every battlefield upon which Americans have 
borne arms since the Revolution? 

These are questions which must be answered. 
We are Americans. We in our turn serve 
America, and can serve her with no private 
purpose. We must use her flag as she has 
always used it. We are accountable at the bar 
of history and must plead in utter frankness 
what purpose it Is we seek to serve. 

It is plain enough how we were forced into 
the war. The extraordinary insults and ag- 
gressions of the Imperial German Government 
left us no self-respecting choice but to take up 
arms in defense of our rights as a free people 
and of our honor as a sovereign government. 
The military masters of Germany denied us the 
right to be neutral. They filled our unsuspect- 
ing communities with vicious spies and con- 
spirators and sought to corrupt the opinion of 
our people In their own behalf. When they 
found that they could not do that, their agents 
diligently spread sedition amongst us and 
sought to draw our own citizens from their al- 



io8 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

legiance — but some of those agents were men 
connected with the official Embassy of the Ger- 
man Government itself here in our own capital. 
They sought by violence to destroy our in- 
dustries and arrest our commerce. They tried 
to incite Mexico to take up arms against us 
and to draw Japan into a hostile alliance with 
her — and that, not by indirection, but by direct 
suggestion from the Foreign Office in Berlin. 
They impudently denied us the use of the high 
seas and repeatedly executed their threat that 
they would send to their death any of our 
people who ventured to approach the coasts of 
Europe. And many of our own people were 
corrupted. Men began to look upon their own 
neighbors with suspicion and to wonder in their 
hot resentment and surprise whether there was 
any community in which hostile intrigue did not 
lurk. What great nation in such circumstances 
would not have taken up arms? Much as we 
had desired peace, it was denied us, and not of 
our own choice. This flag under which we 
serve would have been dishonored had we with- 
held our hand. 

For us there is but one choice. We have 
made it. Woe be to the man or group of men 
that seeks to stand in our way in this day of 
high resolution when every principle we hold 
dearest is to be vindicated and made secure for 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 109 

the salvation of the nations. We are ready to 
plead at the bar of history, and our flag shall 
wear a new luster. Once more we shall make 
good with our lives and fortunes the great faith 
to which we were born, and a new glory shall 
shine in the face of our people. 



no PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THE BELGIAN FLAG 

Red for the blood of soldiers, 
Black, yellow and red — 

Black for the tears of mothers. 
Black, yellow and red — 

And yellow for the light and flame 

Of the fields where the blood is shed! 

To the glorious flag, my children. 

Hark! the call your country gives, 
To the flag in serried order ! 
He who dies for Belgium lives! 

Red for the purple of heroes, 
Black, yellow and red — 

Black for the veils of widows 
Black, yellow and red — 

And yellow for the shining crown 

Of the victors who have bled I 

To the flag, the flag, my children, 
Hearken to your country's cry! 

Never has it shone so splendid, 
Never has it flown so high I 

Red for the flames in fury. 
Black, yellow and red — 



FROM THE GREAT WAR iii 

Black for the mourning ashes, 
Black, yellow and red — 
And yellow of gold, as we proudly hail 
The spirits of the dead! 

To the flag, my sons ! Your country 
With her blessing " Forward " cries! 

Has it shrunken? No, when smallest, 
Larger, statelier. It flies ! 

Is It tattered? No, 'tis stoutest 
When destruction It defies ! 

— From the French of E. Cammaerts 



112 PATRIOTIC PIECES 



FLY A CLEAN FLAG 

By permission of the author and the publishers, The Reilly & 
Britton Co., Chicago 

This I heard the Old Flag say 

As I passed It yesterday: 

'* Months ago your friendly hands 

Fastened me on slender strands 

And with patriotic love 

Placed me here to wave above 

You and yours. I heard you say 

On that long departed day: 

* Flag of all that's true and fine, 

Wave above this house of mine; 

Be the first at break of day 

And the last at night to say 

To the world this word of cheer: 

Loyalty abldeth here.' 

" Here on every wind that's blown, 
O'er your portal I have flown; 
Rain and snow have battered me. 
Storms at night have tattered me; 
Dust of street and chimney stack 
Day by day have stained me black. 
And I've watched you passing there, 
Wondering how much you care. 
Have you noticed that your flag, 
Is to-day a wind-blown rag? 



FROM THE GREAT WAR iij 

Has your love so careless grown 
By the long neglect you've shown 
That you never raise your eye 
To the symbol that you fly? " 

" Flag, on which no stain has been, 
'Tis my sin that you're unclean," 
Then I answered in my shame. 
" On my head must lie the blame. 
Now with patriotic hands 
I release you from your strands, 
And a spotless flag shall fly 
Here to greet each passer-by. 
Nevermore shall Flag of mine 
Be a sad and sorry sign 
Telling all who look above 
I neglect the thing I love. 
But my flag of faith shall be 
Fit for every eye to see." 

— Edgar A. Guest 



114 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THE OLD ROAD TO PARADISE 

Permission of the author and the publisher, 
Good Housekeeping, New York 

Ours is a dark Eastertide, and a scarlet spring, 
But high up at Heaven's gate all the saints sing, 
Glad for the great companies returning to their 
King! 

Oh, in youth the dawn's a rose, dusk an 

amethyst. 
All the roads from dusk to dawn gay they wind 

and twist. 
The old road to Paradise, easy it is missed! 

But out on the wet battlefields few the roadways 

wind. 
One to grief, one to death — no road that's 

kind — 
The old road to Paradise, plain it is to find. 

(St. Martin in his Colonel's cloak, St. Joan in 

her mail. 
King David with his crown and sword — oh, 

none there be that fail — 
Along the road to Paradise they stand to greet 

and hail!) 

Where the dark's a terror-thing, morn a hope 
doubt-tossed. 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 115 

Where the lads He thinking long, out in rain 

and frost, 
There they find their God again, long ago they 

lost. 

Where the night comes cruelly, where the hurt 

men moan. 
Where the crushed forgotten ones whisper 

prayers alone, 
Christ along the battlefields comes to lead His 

own. 

Souls that would have withered soon in the 

world's hot glare. 
Blown and gone like shriveled things, dusty on 

the air, 
Rank on rank they follow Him, young and 

strong and fair! 

Ours is a sad Eastertide, and a woeful day. 
Yet high up at Heaven's gate the saints are all 

gay, 
For the old road to Paradise — 'tis a crowded 



way! 



— Margaret Widdemer 



ii6 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

AS THEY LEAVE US 

Permission of the author 

Bid farewell with pride, 
Show no trace of sorrow; 

Smile into their eyes, 

Though your courage borrow; 

There will be another day, 
And a time 
To pay ! 

Gallant is their look, 

But their hearts are tender. 

Cry aloud your faith ! 
Loyal tribute render ! 

For they go — the young, the brave 
Liberty 
To save ! 

Tell them not of fear; 

Whisper not of sadness; 
Overbrim to-day 

With heroic gladness ; 
Let your love, remembered, shine 

As a light 
Benign ! 

Simple is their trust, 
But 'tis deep as ocean; 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 117 

Lofty is their hope, 

Selfless their devotion; 
And they go — the young, the brave — 

Liberty 
To save ! 

Hark ! The bugles call ! 

Wave your banners ! — cheer them ! 
Happy, let them dream 

All that's valiant near them ! 
They will know, when far from you, 
That the dream 
Was true ! 

— Florence Earle Coaxes 



ii8 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

" WE ARE OF ONE BLOOD " 

Two nations, but one people, in our color, race 

and creeds, 
Who boast a common heritage and sires of 

noble deeds; 
They say a line divides us, but, despite the land 

or flood, 
We clasp the hand from land to land, for we're 

of common blood. 

We may differ as to tariff rates, waters and 
boundary line. 

If we catch each other poaching, we will in- 
dicate the fine. 

But we think that we should emphasize, 'twill 
do us all much good. 

Our fathers came from common soil; their veins 
flow common blood. 

When warring nations question us, we'll fling 

the message back. 
With stars and stripes entwined about our dear 

old Union Jack, 
" We're brothers born, we're brothers still, and 

brothers aye shall be, 
We'll stand for right, we'll stand for truth and 

Christian liberty." 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 119 

The call for world-wide freedom has put us to 

the test, 
The price we pay is very high, we're giving of 

our best; 
From college, farm and factory, we've sent our 

bravest sons, 
To hold our treasured liberty from devastating 

Huns. 

To guard our women's honor and our dear old 

native sod. 
From war-mad Prussian officers, whose passion 

knows no God. 
Our sons have never faltered; they've always 

won the day. 
In face of overwhelming odds, they've held the 

foe at bay. 

Here's to the sons of Uncle Sam, who stand 

with Jack Canuck, 
Who struggle for a righteous cause in good or 

evil luck, 
Whose bugles never sound retreat, who fight to 

win or die. 
That Stars and Stripes with Union Jack for 

freedom's cause may fly. 

And when the war is over and democracy is 
saved, 



I20 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

While we review the gallant crew, who land 

and water braved, 
On the North Sea or Langemarck, Vimy or 

Passchendaele, 
We'll tell the world, with flag unfurled, " they 

weathered every gale." 

And when the noble veteran troops come 

marching through our street, 
And loud hurrahs are sounding to the tramping 

of their feet, 
The tear drops glistening in some eyes voice 

words we cannot speak, 
That God, who holds " our boys " in trust, His 

promise will keep. 

— Rev. C. L. McIrvine 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 121 
THE TRUMPET CALL 

Permission of the author 

I dreamed last night of the trumpet-call: 

" Come over and help us across the sea, 

Come over and help us, brothers all, 

We fight for justice and liberty! " 

But my couch was soft and my comforts dear, 

And the ones I loved had naught to fear. 

So I sent this answer across the sea : 

" The sons of France shall fight for me, 

Russia's arms and the British fleet 

Will shelter me in my safe retreat, 

Italy's brave are in the field, 

And Canada's troops will never yield." 



Again in the darkness I heard a call: 

" Come over and help us in the fight, 

For the cause of freedom we give our all. 

In the name of honor and truth and right! " 

But my heart was sick with desperate strife. 

And I clung to peace as this nation's life. 

So I sent my answer across the sea : 

** The sons of France shall die for me, 

Russia's arms and the British fleet. 

Will guard this nation against defeat, 

Italy's troops are staunch and strong, 

And Belgium's faith shall conquer wrong." 



122 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

Out of the East came a piercing cry: 

" 'Tis you in your safe retreat who die ! 

AHve are the sons of France to-day, 

O'er the British fleet death holds no sway, 

Russia's arms, and Italy's brave, 

The valor of Belgium strong to save, 

These the immortal standards bear. 

You are the dead men over there 

In the land made free by the blood of France, 

Boasting the Briton's inheritance. 

Strong with the strength of every land. 

Your fair flag droops in a nerveless hand.'* 

At dawn I rose with my soul aflame, 
And I flashed this message across the deep : 
" With the living nations enroll my name ! 
Brothers, we waken from our sleep; 
From stately mansion and workshop small, 
From mine and mill and college hall, 
From mountain and valley and river town. 
Men of this nation are winding down. 
Sons of France, we will fight to-day! 
Fight for the debt we long to pay. 
Fight for the valiant British fleet 
Guarding our nation from defeat." 

And when at last on some glorious morn, 
The Peace of a ransomed world is born. 
And immortal standards in triumph wave. 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 123 

Over the heads of the free and the brave, 
Glory of France and Britain's pride, 
With the Stars and Stripes shall be side by side. 

— Caroline Ticknor 



124 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THE MAN WHO CAN FIGHT 
AND SMILE 

Permission of the author 

There is need in the world of men to-day 
For the man who can fight and smile; 

For the man who can to the field away 
With a song on his lips the while. 

There is need in the world of women to-day 
For the woman who smiles and gives; 

Who can hide her tears and her deep dismay, 
While in sorrow she works and lives. 

There are tears enough in the world to-day, 
With its strife and bloodshed and grief; 

We must lift our hearts from the clouds of 
gray, 
And so glimpse the sunshine brief. 

We must fight with a faith as well as a will, 

For faith will make victory sure; 
With the knowledge that right shall triumph 
still, 

And bring a peace to endure. 

So here's to the man who can fight and smile. 
And the woman who smiles as she gives; 

And here's to the end of war's dreadful night 
And the dawn of the peace that lives. 

— Norma Bright Carson 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 125 

MAKERS OF THE FLAG 

This morning, as I passed into the Land 
Office, The Flag dropped me a most cordial 
salutation, and from its rippling folds I heard 
it say: " Good morning, Mr. Flag Maker." 

" I beg your pardon. Old Glory," I said, 
** aren't you mistaken? I am not the President 
of the United States, nor a member of Con- 
gress, nor even a general in the army. I am 
only a Government clerk." 

" I greet you again, Mr. Flag Maker," re- 
plied the gay voice, " I know you well. You 
are the man who worked in the swelter of 
yesterday straightening out the tangle of that 
farmer's homestead in Idaho, or perhaps you 
found the mistake in that Indian contract in 
Oklahoma, or helped to clear that patent for 
the hopeful inventor in New York, or pushed 
the opening of that new ditch in Colorado, or 
made that mine in Illinois more safe, or brought 
relief to the old soldier in Wyoming. No 
matter; whichever one of these beneficent in- 
dividuals you may happen to be, I give you 
greeting, Mr. Flag Maker." 

I was about to pass on, when The Flag 
stopped me with these words : 

" Yesterday the President spoke a word that 



126 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

made happier the future of ten million peons 
in Mexico; but that act looms no larger on the 
flag than the struggle which the boy in Georgia 
is making to win the Corn Club prize this 
summer. 

^' Yesterday the Congress spoke a word 
which will open the door of Alaska; but a 
mother in Michigan worked from sunrise until 
far into the night, to give her boy an educa- 
tion. She, too, is making the flag. 

*' Yesterday we made a new law to prevent 
financial panics, and yesterday, maybe, a school 
teacher in Ohio taught his first letters to a boy 
who will one day write a song that will give 
cheer to the millions of our race. We are 
all making the flag." 

" But," I said impatiently, " these people 
were only working! " 

Then came a great shout from The Flag : 

*' The work that we do is the making of the 
flag. 

" I am not the flag; not at all. I am but its 
shadow. 

" I am whatever you make me, nothing more. 

" I am your belief in yourself, your dream of 
what a People may become. 

" I live a changing life, a life of moods and 
passions, of heart breaks and tired muscles. 

" Sometimes I am strong with pride, when 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 127 

men do an honest work, fitting the rails to- 
gether truly. 

" Sometimes I droop, for then purpose has 
gone from me, and cynically I play the coward. 

" Sometimes I am loud, garish, and full of 
that ego that blasts judgment. 

" But always, I am all that you hope to be, 
and have the courage to try for. 

" I am song and fear, struggle and panic, and 
ennobling hope. 

" I am the day's work of the weakest man, 
and the largest dream of the most daring. 

" I am the Constitution and the courts, 
statutes and the statute makers, soldier and 
dreadnaught, drayman and street sweep, cook, 
counselor, and clerk. 

" I am the battle of yesterday and the mis- 
take of to-morrow. 

*' I am the mystery of the men who do with- 
out knowing why. 

" I am the clutch of an idea, and the rea- 
soned purpose of resolution. 

" I am no more than what you believe me to 
be and I am all that you believe I can be. 

'' I am what you make me, nothing more. 

*' I swing before your eyes as a bright gleam 
of color, a symbol of yourself, the pictured 
suggestion of that big thing which makes this 
nation. My stars and my stripes are your 



128 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

dream and your labors. They are bright with 
cheer, brilhant with courage, firm with faith, 
because you have made them so out of your 
hearts. For you are the makers of the flag 
and it is well that you glory in the making." 

— Franklin K. Lane 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 129 
FATHER AND SON 

Permission of the author 
I 

THE FATHER 

Would God that I could go in place 
Of him, my hope of house and race. 
Would I could shoulder knapsack, gun 
Against the wild and furious Hun. 
Would I could face the tempest, rain, 
The bullets, hunger, thirst and pain. 
I'd revel in the maddest fray, 
If only he, my boy, could stay. 

I would be glad to sink in sea, 
Be crucified, or hanged on tree. 
Or fall in airplane from the sky. 
I've lived. What matter when I die? 
I'd stand, with smiles, in vilest trench. 
And laugh at gases, mud and stench. 
I would not wail for eyes gone blind. 
Or shrink from shatt'ring of the mind, 
I'd revel in the maddest fray. 
If only he, my boy, could stay. 

'Tis ill to know his youthful breast 
May be by pallid fear oppressed; 



I30 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

That he may fall in brutal hands 
And be a slave to their commands; 
That he may shudder, starve and thirst 
Among the demon Huns accursed. 
Oh, joy, if I could only go 
And take the pain and bear the blow I 
I'd revel in the maddest fray, 
If only he, my boy, could stay. 

His boyish flesh is all too fair 
To meet the brutes and devils there. 
His face it is too glad and bright 
To front the demons of the night. 
His heart it is too kind and warm 
To bear the ice and snow and storm. 
Would I for him herewith could go 
And bear the pain and face the foe, 
I'd revel in the maddest fray. 
If only he, my boy, could stay. 



II 

THE SON 

The call to duty now has come ; 
The flags are out, with fife and drum. 
The cause for which we fight is just; 
In God above is all our trust. 
I gladly go to do my share ; 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 131 

My chance is equal and is fair. 
I hope, indeed, that I may live; 
In need I have a life to give. 

My father long has done his part; 
He gave me home and all his heart. 
I'd be unworthy of my race 
If peril now I dared not face. 
My country has done all for me; 
I gladly serve to keep it free. 
I hope, indeed, that I may live ; 
In need I have a life to give. 

I feel my heart is strong within; 
I prize the chance to fight and win. 
And if I perish, I but ask 
That word come back I did my task. 
I'll act so that no blush of shame 
Will come to them that bear my name. 
I'm happy that, where'er I roam, 
My father is secure at home. 
I hope, indeed, that I may live; 
In need I have a life to give. 

— Calvin Dill Wilson 



132 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THE PARADE 

Permission of the author 

I watch the regiments swinging by 
In the shimmer of polished steel, 
With guns that glisten, and flags that fly. 
And bronzed young faces, and heads held high, 
And the glint of the bayonet finds reply 
In the answering flash of the soldier's eye, 
As the endless lines unreel. 

I hear the throb of the big bass drum; 

'Tis the heart of the army beats 
In its loud tattoo, and my pulses thrum. 
And the swelling veins in my temple hum, 
And my sight grows dim, and my lips are dumb. 
As I stand on tiptoe to see it come 

Through the crowded and cheering streets. 

I see the regiments tramping by 

To the lilt of a martial air, 
Clean young fellows, alert and spry, 
Ready and eager to do and die 
For humanity under an alien sky. 
And a proud old woman this day am I, 

For my son is marching there ! 

— Minna Irving 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 133 
THE NIGHTINGALES OF FLANDERS 

The nightingales of Flanders, 
They have not gone to war; 
A soldier heard them singing 
Where they had sung before. 

The earth was torn and quaking, 
The sky about to fall; 
The nightingales of Flanders, 
They minded not at all. 

At Intervals he heard them, 
Between the guns, he said, 
Making a thrilling music 
Above the listening dead. 

Of woodland and of orchard 
And roadside tree bereft. 
The nightingales of Flanders 
Were singing, " France is left! '* 

— Grace Hazard Conkling 



134 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

TO FRANCE! 

To France ! To France ! The magic music 

falls 
Across the world the voice of God now calls 
To France ! 
The war bells ring, and all the wide world 

gongs, 
As soldiers march out with their battle songs 
To France ! 

The bugles and the music of the earth 
Call out with joy and marvelous mirth 
To France ! 

To France for God, to France for Liberty 
To France for Peace and our Democracy, 
To France I 

Columbia's hand now lifts the torch of war 
And starts with blinding light across the star 
To France ! 

The millions, brilliant, march on down the sky 
And great America rings with all the cry 
To France ! 

Come one, come all, to spend your lives and 

gold. 
Come heroes, gentlemen, the brave, the bold. 
To France I 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 135 

Come, citizens in khaki, every one, 

Come, find your God, come march into the sun, 

To France 1 



To France, to France, the bugles, silver curled, 
Go ringing out their chimes across the world 
To France ! 

Come one, come all, the magic music falls. 
The voice of God goes ringing with its calls. 
To France! 

— Edwin Curran 



136 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

LANGEMARCK AT YPRES 

This is the ballad of Langemarck, 

A story of glory and might; 
Of the vast Hun horde, and Canada's part 

In the great, grim fight. 

It was April fair on the Flanders Fields, 

But the dreadest April then, 
That ever the years, in their fateful flight. 

Had brought to this world of men. 

North and east, a monster wall, 

The mighty Hun ranks lay. 
With fort on fort, and iron-ringed trench, 

Menacing, grim and gray. 

And south and west, like a serpent of fire, 

Serried the British lines. 
And in between, the dying and dead, 
And the stench of blood, and the trampled mud, 

On the fair, sweet Belgian vines. 

And far to the eastward, harnessed and taut, 
Like a scimitar, shining and keen, 

Gleaming out of that ominous gloom. 
Old France's hosts were seen. 

When out of the grim Hun lines one night. 
There rolled a sinister smoke; — 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 137 

A strange, weird cloud, like a pale, green 
shroud, 

And death lurked in its cloak. 
On a fiend-like wind it curled along 

Over the brave French ranks. 
Like a monster tree its vapors spread. 

In hideous, burning banks 
Of poisonous fumes that scorched the night 

With their sulphurous demon danks. 

And men went mad with horror, and fled 
From that terrible strangling death, 

That seem to sear both body and soul 
With its baleful, flaming breath. 

Till even the little dark men of the south, 
Who feared neither God nor man, 

Those fierce, wild fighters of Afric's steppes. 
Broke their battalions and ran ; — 

Ran as they never had run before. 
Gasping, and fainting for breath; 

For they knew 'twas no human foe that slew; 
And that hideous smoke meant death. 

Then red in the reek of that evil cloud, 

The Hun swept over the plain; 
And the murderer's dirk did its monster work, 

'Mid the scythe-like shrapnel rain. 



138 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

Till It seemed that at last the brute Hun hordes 

Had broken that wall of steel; 
And that soon, through this breach in the free- 
man's dyke, 

His trampling hosts would wheel; — 

And sweep to the south in ravaging might, 

And Europe's peoples again 
Be trodden under the tyrant's heel, 

Like herds. In the Prussian pen. 

But In that line on the British right. 

There massed a corps amain, 
Of men who hailed from a far west land 

Of mountain and forest and plain; 

Men new to war and Its dreadest deeds, 

But noble and staunch and true; 
Men of the open, East and West, 

Brew of old Britain's brew. 

These were the men out there that night. 

When Hell loomed close ahead; 
Who saw that pitiful, hideous rout. 

And breathed those gases dread; 
While some went under and some went mad; 

But never a man there fled. 

For the word was " Canada," theirs to fight, 
And keep on fighting still ; — 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 139 

Britain said, fight, and fight they would. 

Though the Devil himself in sulphurous 

mood. 
Came over that hideous hill. 

Yea, stubborn, they stood, that hero band, 

Where no soul hoped to live ; 
For five, 'gainst eighty, thousand men, 

Were hopeless odds to give. 

Yea, fought they on ! 'Twas Friday eve, 
When that demon gas drove down; 

'Twas Saturday eve that saw them still 
Grimly holding their own ; 

Sunday, Monday, saw them yet, 

A steadily lessening band. 
With " no surrender " in their hearts, 

But the dream of far-ofi land. 

Where mother and sister and love would weep 
For the hushed heart lying still ; — 

But never a thought but to do their part. 
And work the Empire's will. 

Ringed round, hemmed in, and back to back, 
They fought there under the dark. 

And won for Empire, God and Right, 
At grim, red Langemarck. 



I40 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

Wonderful battles have shaken this world, 

Since the Dawn-God overthrew Dis; 
Wonderful struggles of right against wrong, 
Sung in the rhymes of the world's great song, 
But never a greater than this. 

Bannockburn, Inkerman, Balaclava, 

Marathon's god-like stand 
But never a more heroic deed. 
And never a greater warrior breed, 

In any warman's land. 

This is the ballad of Langemarck, 

A story of glory and might; 
Of the vast Hun horde, and Canada's part 

In the great, grim fight. 

— Wilfred Campbell 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 141 
WHAT IS PATRIOTISM? 

Not dilating with pleasurable emotions when 
the American flag is unfurled. Not rising to 
our feet when the Star-Spangled Banner is 
sung. Not joining societies of Colonial 
Dames, or Daughters of the Revolution. Not 
sending off fire-works on the Fourth of July. 
These things may be the expression of civic 
pride, or of personal pride, or of pure hilarity. 
They may represent steadfastness of purpose, 
or mere force of habit. They symbolize con- 
tentment in times of peace, and it remains to 
be seen how far they symbolize nationality in 
times of peril. For many years no serious ob- 
ligation has been thrust upon us, no sacrifice de- 
manded of us, in return for protection and 
security. Now the call is imperative, and by 
the sustained fervor of our response will the 
depth and purity of our patriotism be made 
manifest to the world. 

Two things are certain: We were not 
lightly tossed into this war to appease resent- 
ment, or to gratify ambition; and it will take 
all our energy, sagacity and determination to 
win out against an adversary whose strength 
can never be overestimated. Because we are 
a peace-loving people, we reelected a pro- 
foundly peace-loving President. Because we 



142 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

are a patient people, we endured repeated in- 
sult and repeated injury, and sought to win re- 
dress by noble but futile remonstrance. Our 
flag was hauled down on the high seas, our 
ships were sunk, our seamen drowned like rats. 
There were many whose hearts were sore over 
these things, and whose slow-growing anger 
burned like a hidden flame. There were many 
who had begun to ask In Lowell's homely 
words, 

*' Wut'll make ye act like freemen? 
Wut'll git your dander riz? " 

Still the President's restraining hand held 
an angry people in leash. Still he hoped 
against hope, and strove against fate, to obtain 
some measure of justice. It was only when 
it became a qpjestion of the United States tak- 
ing orders from Germany, and so yielding our 
assent to her crimes, that Mr. Wilson asked 
Congress to proclaim a state of war. We had 
then no choice left us. It was not merely the 
nation's honor and the nation's welfare that 
were at stake. It was the salvation of the na- 
tion's soul. 

Because we realized this, we read unmoved 
the appeals sent out by Peace Committees, and 
Fellowships of Reconciliation. What was the 
use of asking us to " generate, and set in opera- 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 143 

tion the irresistible energies of love; " to *' com- 
bat wrong by a sustained appeal to con- 
science; " to assert *' the constructive principles 
of good-will " ? God knows, we had tried to 
do these things. We had tried, as decent-liv- 
ing men and women, to establish relations of 
decency with the Central Powers, and we had 
failed. They struck at us treacherously again 
and again, plotting in secret at our doors, re- 
paying our hospitality and our trust by making 
bombs for our destruction on the ships which 
were sheltered in our ports. It was time, and 
more than time, that we turned the " irresistible 
energies of love," the " constructive principles 
of good-will," to the aid of those allied nations 
who were bearing on their galled shoulders the 
burden of a war they had not provoked, and 
upon whose triumph or defeat rests the hopes 
of an assaulted civilization. 

It is imbecile to prate about the glamor of 
war and the infection of the military spirit. 
There is no glamor left in war. We know 
the truth about it. There is no military spirit, 
unless it is expressed in Mr. Wilson's words, 
" The world must be made safe for democ- 
racy." No man likes to endure hardships. 
Few men care to face danger and brave death. 
This is why we apply the word " heroic " to a 
nation's defenders. A French soldier, blinded 



144 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

for life in his first skirmish, said quietly in re- 
sponse to commiseration, " Some one had to be 
there." No simpler exposition of duty was 
ever given. Some one has to do the hard and 
bitter work. Some one has to front the peril 
and bear the burden. The man who says, 
" Why not I as well as another? " is a patriot. 
The man who says, " Why not another rather 
than I?" is a shirker.- War is the supreme 
test of character. It took a war to give us 
Washington. It took a grievous war to give 
us Lincoln. Both these men suffered greatly 
in fulfillment of their high purpose. Both bore 
their share of pain without shrinking and with- 
out resentment. 

If we value our civilization, if we love our 
homes, if we believe that our country stands 
a living vindication of popular government, we 
must prove our patriotism in this day of trial. 
The pacifist talks of peace, the socialist of the 
tyranny of capital, the sentimentalist of uni- 
versal brotherhood, the coward of caution. 
The patriot has a strong and simple word, duty, 
to guide him on his way. The issue now be- 
fore us is one which, in the words of Lincoln, 
" can be tried only by war, and settled by 
victory.'' It was not our choice to fight, but 
the alternative was submission to wrong-doing, 
and that way lies perdition. American women, 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 145 

no less than American men, repudiated the 
shameful surrender of all we held sacred and 
dear, and are now prepared to abide by the 
consequences of their decision. " Only thus," 
says Mr. Roosevelt gallantly, " shall we stand 
erect before the world, high of heart, the 
masters of our own souls." 

— Agnes Repplier 



146 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THE WRIST WATCH MAN 

By permission of the author and the publishers, The Reilly & 
Britton Co., Chicago 

He Is marching dusty highways and he's riding 

bitter trails, 
His eyes are clear and shining and his muscles 

hard as nails. 
He Is wearing Yankee khaki and a healthy coat 

of tan, 
And the chap that we are backing is the Wrist 

Watch Man. 

He^s no parlor dude, a-prancing, he's no puny 

pacifist, 
And it's not for affectation, there's a watch 

upon his wrist. 
He's a fine two-fisted scrapper, he Is pure 

American, 
And the backbone of the nation is the Wrist 

Watch Man. 

He is marching with a rifle, he is digging in a 

trench. 
He Is swapping English phrases with a pollu 

for his French ; 
You will find him in the navy doing anything he 

can, 
For at every post of duty is the Wrist Watch 

Man. 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 147 

Oh, the time was that we chuckled at the soft 

and flabby chap 
Who wore a little wrist watch that was 

fastened with a strap. 
But the chuckles all have vanished, and with 

glory now we scan 
The courage and the splendor of the Wrist 

Watch Man. 

He is not the man we laughed at, not the one 

who won our jeers. 
He's the man that we are proud of, he's the 

man that owns our cheers; 
He's the finest of the finest, he's the bravest of 

the clan, 
And I pray for God's protection for our Wrist 

Watch Man. 

— Edgar A. Guest 



148 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

GOD SPEED OUR SOLDIERS 

Permission of the author 

They know not where the journey ends, 

Our Boys that march away; 
They only know their Country sends 

Them on its work to-day. 
To foreign lands 'neath alien skies 

The foeman's might to brave — 
There Liberty deep-wounded lies 

And calls on us to save. 

Ye lads that leave our homes forlorn 

As forth to War ye go, 
What though our hearts with grief are torn, 

Yet would we have it so. 
Could France — friend of our infancy — 

Appeal to us in vain? 
France, that for our liberty bled 

On Yorktown's storied plain 1 

God speed you, gallant gentlemen, 

Columbia's Chivalry! 
Fare forth to fields of Fame again. 

For Faith and Memory. 
We know your hearts beat strong and true, 

That Freedom's blood will tell; 
Dear Lads, our hats are off to you, 

God keep you all. Farewell. 

— George Frederic Viett 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 149 
FORGET IT, SOLDIER! 

Sometimes when I grow weary 

Of beans and soup and stew, 
I long to be where I could get 

A home-cooked meal or two. 
Such thoughts as turkey, steaks and chops 

Go floating through my head; 
Biscuits, muffins, hot cakes 

And loaves of home-made bread. 

Forget it, soldier ! 
Such feasts are not for you. 

Let hunger spice your soup and beans 
And appetize your stew. 

At night when I get tired 

Of bed sack, straw and cot; 
Of sleeping under blankets, 

Sometimes warm and sometimes not, 
I dream of great fourposter beds, 

With pillow, quilt and sheet 
And mattresses in which you sink 

About a thousand feet. 

Forget it, soldier! 
Such ease is not for you. 

Let hard work make your bed sack soft, 
As other fellows do. 



150 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

But worst of all, when I get bored 

With what the fellows say, 
I think about a girl I know 

So many miles away; 
The nicest, dearest little girl 

You'd ever care to know. 
She was my sweetheart once, it seems, 

A hundred years ago. 

Forget it, soldier! 
Sweethearts are not for you. 

Your rifle Is your sweetheart, 
So learn to shoot It true. 

— C. F. R. — Camp Hancock 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 151 
LA BASSEE ROAD 

(Guinchy, 1915) 

You'll see from the La Bassee Road, on any 

summer's day, 
The children herding nanny-goats, the women 

making hay. 
You'll see the soldiers, khaki clad, in column 

and platoon. 
Come swinging up La Bassee Road from billets 

in Bethune. 
There's hay to save and corn to cut, but harder 

work by far 
Awaits the soldier boys who reap the harvest 

fields of war. 
You'll see them swinging up the road where 

women work at hay. 
The straight long road, — La Bassee Road, — 

on any summer day. 



The night-breeze sweeps La Bassee Road, the 

night-dews wet the hay, 
The boys are coming back again, a straggling 

crowd are they. 
The column's lines are broken, there are gaps 

in the platoon, 
They'll not need many billets, now, for soldiers 

in Bethune, 



152 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

For many boys, good lusty boys, who marched 

away so fine. 
Have now got little homes of clay beside the 

firing line. 
Good luck to them, God speed to them, the boys 

who march away, 
A-swinging up La Bassee Road each sunny 

summer day. 

— Patrick MacGill 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 153 

THE NEW BANNER 

O fellow-citizens of storm-tossed lands, 

War weary ! Sounds the bugle-note 1 

Arise ! 

New steadfast standards wait your eager 

hands, 

The Star of Promise orbs to meet your eyes. 

Great kings must pass, that mankind may be 

free, 
Beneath the banner of democracy ! 



The Mighty Ruler of this mortal life 

Has wisdom, not by mortals understood; 

The seeds of blood, the deeds of wanton strife 
Shall some day harvest unexpected good. 

Great kings shall pass and every nation be 

Ruled by the people — for the people, free. 



When the mad anguish of this stricken 
world — 
Where valiant heroes daily fight and fall — 
Has passed and Freedom's banners are un- 
furled, 
Then shall we know the reason for it all! 
Then every waiting, heart-sick land shall see 
The ultimate design of Destiny ! 



154 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

Brave men and women laboring in toil — 
Who, faithful, fight with willing sword or 
pen. 
Who work to break the rock or till the soil — 
Shall wear the high insignia of men. 
All kings must pass, that every man may be 
A monarch in his manhood, strong and free ! 

Beyond the present, unimagined woe, 

A glorious day is breaking o'er the earth : 
As spring flowers blossom, after ice-bound 
snow. 
The God of Gods shall bring new things to 
birth. 
It is the dawn ! Great forces are set free ! 
All hail the day! World-wide democracy! 

— KIatrina Trask 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 155 
THE COMB BAND 

Permission of the author 

Oh we love the gay canned music in the watches 

of the night 
And we sit about and listen to its records with 

delight, 
And we like to hear the music of the regimental 

band 
While the leader juggles gayly with the baton 

In his hand, 
But the melody that's sweetest as we linger in 

the gloam 
Is the harmony extracted from a fine-tooth 

comb. 



Yes, we get some tissue-paper and some combs 

from out our kit 
And we gather in the squad tent where the 

lantern shadows flit, 
And we play a bunch of rag-time with a lot of 

vim and go 
In a sort of jazz-band rhythm — all the latest 

stuff we know ; 
Tunes that set your shoulders swaying, while 

your thoughts are light as foam. 
To the sound of syncopation on a fine-tooth 

comb. 



156 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

It's a crazy sort of music which would drive a 

critic mad 
But it makes the evenings shorter, and it really 

ain't so bad, 
And it often kind of " gets you " when the boys 

start in to play 
For I've seen some homesick fellows wipe a 

tear or two away 
To the strains of " Suwanee River " and '* My 

Old Kentucky Home," 
As they float in wistful minors from a fine-tooth 

comb. 

When this cruel war is over — and I hope I'll 
last it through 

And we beat the German army — as we all in- 
tend to do, 

When the slaughtering is finished and the final 
fight we win, 

And with flags and pennons flying we go march- 
ing through Berlin, 

I would like to tramp in triumph past the 
kaiser's palace dome. 

Playing "Stars and Stripes Forever!" on a 
fine-tooth comb ! 

— Berton Braley 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 157 
TO THE GLORY OF THE NEEDLE 

By permission of Needlecraft, Augusta, Maine 

Never before have they plied so well — 
Never so sturdily; 

Love in the wool, and there's love in the 
stitch, 

And the heart of the woman is doubly rich 
Who's knitting for you and me. 
The way of the war is a right hard way, 

And troubled and grim and blind; 
But what of the mothers at home to-day. 

And the love that we left behind? 
Click ! click ! click ! — so do the needles sing. 
Click! chck! click! — souls of us seem a-wing. 

And the gray wool falls into magic place. 

And we fancy we see such a fair, sweet face 

That battle is blessed with a holy grace — 
And so do the needles sing! 

Never before was their task so dear — 
Never so bitter-sweet! 

We of the trench and the blood-red land 

Look to the thrift of that swift, sure hand 
In victory — or defeat! 
Our thoughts stray back to a sunlit room 

Where the casement is wide and bright; 
And the fairy work of a finger-loom 

That spins from the dawn till night. 



158 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

Click! click! click! — so do the needles croon, 
Click! click! click! — with a sort of wistful 
tune; 
And the snow sweeps down from a leaden 

sky, 
And the chill wind whines as it passes by, 
It's a desolate place for a man to die — 
Ah, the needles are none too soon! 

Never before was their weave so swift — 
Never so firm and true; 

Love in the parcel that's handed to me. 

Bridging the width of a storm-tossed sea, 
And stamped with the seal of YOU ! 
The gray wool fashions a precious thing. 

That covers a fast-timed heart; 
And precious the song that the needles sing 

As they hasten to do their part. 
Click ! click ! click ! — so comes the clear re- 
frain. 
Click! click! click! — over and over again; 

And it's mother, and sister and maiden fair, 
Who knit for the fellow who's " over there," 

The home-hands, doing their little share 
For the living — and for the slain ! 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 159 

FIRST U. S. SOLDIER DEAD BURIED 
IN FRANCE 

America's first soldier dead in the war have 
been buried. Their coffins were draped in the 
folds of the flag for which they died. 

Comrades bore them to the center of a hol- 
low square, formed by American soldiers and 
veteran French troops. From the massed 
ranks there stepped a French general. He 
walked straight to the three coffins, reverently 
hesitating at the first. Then he stiffened to the 
salute, doffed his cap, bowed, his face lined as 
though the mute remains before him were of 
his own children. 

" Private Enright," he said softly, as he 
bowed before the nearest bier, " Private 
Gresham " — and he turned to the second — 
** and Private Hay " — as he turned still 
further to face the third coffin — 

'* In the name of France, I bid you farewell. 
Of your own free will, you left your happy, 
prosperous country, and took your place by our 
side. 

" You fell facing the foe, in hard, in desper- 
ate hand-to-hand fight.'' 

The general hesitated a moment, looked at 
each of the three flag-draped coffins, and then 
turned. 



i6o PATRIOTIC PIECES 

" All honor to them," he continued. " Their 
families should be proud to learn of their 
deaths. 

" We of France ask that the mortal remains 
of these young men be left with us forever. 

" We will inscribe on their tombs : 

" * Here Lie the First United States Soldiers 
to Fall on French Soil for Liberty and Justice.' 

" Passersby will uncover their heads to their 
graves; men of heart visiting the battlefield will 
go out of their way to bring their tribute of 
respect and gratitude. 

" Private Enright, Private Gresham, Private 
Hay — in the name of France I thank you. 
May God receive your souls. Farewell ! " 

A great volley of seventy-fives crashed the 
final volley of farewell through the leaden, 
rain-soaked air. Then stalwart American 
soldiers, tears trickling down their faces, low- 
ered their comrades' remains and covered them 
over with the soil for which they fought and 
died. 



FROM THE GREAT WAR i6i 
THE HUN WITH THE GUN 

Permission of the author 
TO THE KAISER 

This is the Thing you have made him — 
A Brute taught to handle a gun; 

Bred like a draft ox for muscle, 
Sir'd by Attila, the Hun. 

Trained by the gad to obedience, 
To gee and to haw — stop and go ; 

Robbed of the God-right to reason, 
On driven, blow upon blow. 

Taught the vile trick' ry of warfare, 

To glory in rapine and might, 
That Christ was all wrong in His Teachings, 

That Treitschke and Neitzsche are right. 

King, fear you not that this Terror, 
Blood-maddened, may turn in his pain 

And rend you? For is it not written, 

" Who lives by the sword shall be slain "? 

— Will P. Snyder 



1 62 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

OUT OF FLANDERS 

Three of us sat on the firing-bench 

Watching the clouds sail by — 

Watching the gray dawn blowing up 

Like smoke across the sky. 

And I thought as I listened to London Joe 

Tell of his leave In town, 

That's good vers llbre with a Cockney twang; 

I'll remember and write it down. 

W'en I went 'ome on furlough, 

My missus says to me, " Joe, 
'Ow many 'Uns 'ave you killed? '* 
An' I says to 'er, "'Uns?" 
Not thinkin' just wot she meant. 
" Yes. 'Uns," she says, " them sneakin', low- 
lived 'Uns!" 
Bitter? Not 'arf, she ain't! 
An' they're all the same w'y in Lunnon. 

My old mate Bill, who's lame 

An' couldn't enlist on that account, 

'E staked me to a pint of ale 

At the Red Lion. Proper stuff it was 

Arter this flat French beer. 

" Well, 'ere's to old times! " says Bill, 

Raisin' 'is glass, 

'' An' bad luck to the 'Uns you've sent below I 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 163 

'E arsked if I'd shot an' seen 'em fall, 
Wanted the de-tails and wanted 'em all I 



An' there was my old hoss in Balham, 

Gave me a quid w'ich I took, willin' enough, 

Altho I made a stall at refusin'. 

" That's all right, Joe, boy! Glad to do it! 

It ain't much, but it'll 'elp you to 'ave a pleasant 
week. 

But w'en you goes back to the trenches, 

I wants you to take a crack at the 'Uns fer me ! 

<aet me a German fer every penny in that sov- 
ereign! " 'e says, 

Smashin' 'is fist on the table 

An' upsettin' a bottle o' ink. 

*' Lay 'em out! " 'e says; 

" Now tell me, 'ow many you killed, about? " 

Speakin' o' 'ymns o' 'ate. 

They sings 'em in Lunnon, I'm tellin' you 

straight ! 
You ought to see their faces w'en they arsks 

you about the 'Uns ! 
Lor' lummy! They ain't arf a bloodthirsty 

lot! 
An' the wimmen as bad as the men. 
I was glad to get back to the trenches again 
Were there's more of a 'uman feelin'. 



1 64 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

Now, us blokes out 'ere, 

We knows old Fritzie ain't so bad as 'e's 

painted 
(An' likely, they knows the same about us). 
Wot I mean is, 'e ain't no worse than wot we 

are. 
Take 'im man fer man. 
There's good an' bad on both sides. 
But do you think you can s'y anything good 
About a German, w'en yer in Lunnon? 
Strike me pink! They won't believe you! 
'E's a 'Un, wotever that is, 
Some kind o' wild beast, I reckon — 
A cross between a snake 

An' one o' them boars with 'orns on their noses 
Out at Regent's Park Zoo. 

— James Norman Hall 



FROM THE GREAT JVAR 165 

NO MAN'S LAND 

No Man's Land Is an eerie sight 
At early dawn in the pale gray light. 
Never a house and never a hedge 
In No Man's Land from edge to edge, 
And never a living soul walks there 
To taste the fresh of the morning air. 
Only some lumps of rotting clay, 
That were friends or foemen yesterday. 

What are the bounds of No Man's Land? 
You can see them clearly on either hand, 
A mound of rag-bags gray in the sun, 
Or a furrow of brown where the earthworks 

run 
From the eastern hills to the western sea, 
Through field or forest o'er river and lea; 
No man may pass them, but aim you well 
And Death rides across on the bullet or shell. 

But No Man's Land is a goblin sight 
When patrols crawl over at dead o' night; 
Boche or British, Belgian or French, 
You dice with death when you cross the trench. 
When the '' rapid," like fireflies In the dark, 
Flits down the parapet spark by spark. 
And you drop for cover to keep your head 
With your face on the breast of the four 
months' dead. 



1 66 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

The man who ranges in No Man's Land 
Is dogged by the shadows on either hand 
When the star-shell's flare, as it bursts o'erhead, 
Scares the great gray rats that feed on the dead, 
And the bursting bomb or the bayonet-snatch 
May answer the click of your safety-catch. 
For the lone patrol, with his life in his hand, 
Is hunting for blood in No Man's Land. 

— J. Knight- Adkin 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 167 
IN SERVICE 

Say, Pa! What is a service flag? 

I see them everywhere. 
There's little stars sewed on them; 

What are they doing there? 
Sometimes there's lots of Httle stars, 

And sometimes just a few, 
Poor Widow Jones has only one 1 — 

I saw her crying, too. 

My darling boy, those little stars. 

Upon a field of white. 
Are emblems of our glorious boys 

Enrolling for the right. 
The border, as you see, is red. 

Which represents their blood; 
The stars are blue, the heavenly hue; 

The white is always good. 
Each star you see means some brave boy 

Has left his hearth and home 
And gone to fight for Freedom's cause 

Wherever he may roam. 

So when you see a lot of stars 

Lift up your heart with joy, 
And when you see a single one, 

Pray for some mother's boy. 
They go away, those gallant lads, 



1 68 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

Across the wreck-strewn sea; 
They go to pledge their country's faith 

For God and liberty. 
The Stars and Stripes they bear aloft 

To join the British flag, 
And with the colors of brave France, 

They mean to end " Der Tag." 
And soon, my boy, that service flag. 

Born in the Nation's heart, 
Will show the world that, when unfurled, 

We proudly take our part. 

— J. E. Evans 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 169 
THE AMERICAN 

By permission of the author 

The first long swells of a rising storm ran 
endlessly past Land's End from the open ocean, 
and the Ardmore rolled heavily as she headed 
for the Atlantic. Sea after sea smashed 
against the blunt bow of the freighter, break- 
ing into stinging clouds of spray that showered 
over the gun on the forecastle and drove aft, 
forcing the lookouts to turn their faces from 
the biting gusts. High on the foremast the 
man in the crow's-nest protected himself as 
best he could by crouching low behind his can- 
vas weather-cloth, sliding lov/er still as each 
whirling cloud of spray, whistling up from the 
blunt bow far below, spattered against the 
swaying mast, to drip in slanting streams back 
to the deck. Forward of the bridge the seas 
piled over the weather rail, to rush and gurgle 
around the hatches and finally to pour in little 
cascades back Into the sea. 

In the overheated galley the cook was lash- 
ing a pot of stew on to the stove, to prevent its 
sliding to the heaving deck. He had care- 
fully made it fast, adjusting it to the already 
well-filled space, when a seaman, bundled up in 
dripping oilskins, burst in through the door, ac- 
companied by part of a spent wave that spread 



lyo PATRIOTIC PIECES 

over the galley floor in a slippery flood. Fol- 
lowing the example of one of his own pots, 
which at that moment boiled over onto the red- 
hot stove, the cook turned upon the intruder, 
sputtering a volley of abuse. 

" Aw, come on, Al," replied the seaman. 
*' I didn't mean to let the English Channel in. 
Give us a cup of coffee. I'm just off watch.'* 

Al forgot his wrath as quickly as it had come 
upon him, and reached for the huge coffee-pot 
that was wedged securely amid the assemblage 
of cooking utensils on the heated stove. 
Swinging it with a practiced hand, he poured 
a cup of the steaming coffee, as he balanced 
himself to the rolling of the ship, and with a 
good-natured grin handed it to the waiting 
sailor. 

*' I'm glad I ain't on deck to-day," Al said, 
as he watched the coffee disappear. " Bein' 
cook ain't just the job for a man, but it's more 
comfortable than standin' watch and watch in 
the English Channel in February." 

" Well," repHed the other, " I won't kick, 
'cause the worse job on this ship ain't standin' 
watch on the bridge. To my notion, bein' one 
of them armed guards is the worst. You 
ought to see 'em up on the forecastle tryin' to 
keep from bein' washed overboard and tryin' 
at the same time to find a sub to shoot at." 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 171 

The cook looked up and grinned. 

" Could they get one a day like this? " he 
asked. 

" They say they could," answered the sailor. 
*' Heavy weather don't seem to make much dif- 
ference to — " 

He stopped abruptly, stood listening for a 
moment, and jumped for the door. Peering 
forward through the driving spray, he saw the 
breech of the forward gun open and an empty 
shell, still smoking from the discharge, jumped 
onto the wet deck. The loader, timing his ac- 
tion to the pitch of the ship, slid another shell 
into the opening, and the plugman slammed 
home the breech. 

The muzzle lifted as the ship rolled and a 
blinding flash burst from it. A roar rolled 
down the deck toward the sailor and the cook, 
both of whom stood clutching the rail, heedless 
of the breaking seas. Looking intently into 
the haze, they saw a splash in the tumbling 
water, and saw, too, the streaming deck of a 
submarine. The gun on the stern of the Ard- 
more roared, and another splash appeared be- 
side the submarine. The gun crew forward, 
working with a precision gained from many a 
drill, loaded again. The ship slid over a swell, 
rolling slowly. The pointer elevated the 
muzzle, and an ear-splitting blast burst forth. 



172 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

The submarine shuddered beneath the shock. 
A part of her deck flew into the air, and a sea, 
driving against her side, buckled her broken 
back. She pitched laboriously in the heavy 
seaway as the inrushing water sucked her 
slowly beneath the surface, while the endless 
seas surged relentlessly on, playfully tossing 
two tiny, struggling forms. 

Slowly the Ardmore turned and headed to- 
ward the spot. On the wing of the bridge a 
sailor stood, swinging a life-buoy. As the ship 
passed the struggling men he tossed it into the 
water. Another life-buoy, thrown by the cap- 
tain, dropped beside it, and a few minutes later 
the almost lifeless bodies of two German 
sailors were dragged over the rail. 

" Take them to the galley," ordered the cap- 
tain, " where it's warm. Al can bring them 
around." 

The two men were presently deposited on 
the galley floor by the sailors who had hauled 
them over the side. For a moment the 
rescuers stood gazing at the dripping forms, 
until Al, assuming command in his realm of 
pots and pans, ordered them out so as to allow 
him to attend to the wants of the unconscious 
Germans. 

The sailors departed, and Al turned to the 
two bedraggled forms that lay huddled near 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 173 

the stove. He had hardly decided on a course 
to pursue, however, when one of them opened 
his eyes. 

" Hello," said Al. " How you feelin'? '* 

The man looked blankly at the cook. 

'^ Oh," continued Al, ^'you're German; 
that's right. Well," and he continued in the 
language of the Fatherland, ^' so am I. Or at 
least I was until I went to America. But now 
I'm an American." 

The expression on the face of the German 
sailor changed. 

** American, are you?" he replied. "And 
you were born in Germany? " 

" Yes," answered Al. " Born in Germany 
and trained in the German army. And I have 
a brother in the German navy, too." 

The other grunted his contempt. Al 
reached for the pot and poured out a steaming 
mug of coffee. 

" Yes," he continued. ** I've been In 
America six years now, and I've got to 
where I can see what's wrong with Germany. 
I used to cheer for the Kaiser, and I thought, 
just as you do, that he is a sort of superior 
being. I used to think that the little impudent 
officers that strutted around were better than 
I was. I had been trained to think so, and they 
had been trained to think so, too. So when I 



174 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

was in the army I imagined that they were 
really better — that their blood was of a dif- 
ferent grade, I suppose. 

" And then I got out of the army and went 
to America on a freight ship. When I went 
ashore in New York, I had a job offered me, 
and I didn't go back to the ship. And now 
I'm glad I didn't. I've saved nearly two 
thousand dollars, being cook in a restaurant. 
And then this war came on, and they needed 
more men for the new ships they were building. 
So I offered to go as cook. I told them that 
I was born in Germany, but that I wanted to 
help the world get rid of the Kaiser. I had 
some trouble getting a ship, but at last our 
captain took me. This is my second trip over. 
And we haven't been sunk yet. Instead of that 
we got you to-day." 

He stopped a moment and then continued. 

*' Why, if you knew what America is you'd 
want to be an American too." 

He seized the coffee-pot again and refilled 
the sailor's cup. 

*' Here," he said, " have some more." 

He poured out another cupful and turned to 
the form that still lay quietly on the deck. 
Seizing the unconscious man, he straightened 
him up and started to pour the coffee down 
his throat. He turned the white face toward 



FROM THE GREAT Jf\iR 17; 



/ 3 



the light and stifled a cry. The cup clattered 
from his hand and rolled to and fro about the 
deck with the rolling of the ship, hnally stop- 
ping in a dark-red blot that marked the place 
where the unconscious sailor had been lying. 

" Hans I " screamed the cook, as he held 
the limp form and felt a sticky warmth against 
his hand where it pressed the sailor's side. 

Slowly the wounded man's eyes opened. 
For a moment he looked blankly at the fright- 
ened cook, and then a smile of recognition 
spread over his face. 

*' Albert," he said huskily. His eyes rolled 
aimlessly for a moment, and his head dropped 
forward. A shudder passed through him, and 
he collapsed in his brother's arms. 

The cook lov/ered the srill form to the deck. 
He rose to his feet and stood holding unsteadily 
to the lashing he had put on the pot of stew. 
The German sailor watched him intently. 

" Your brother? " he asked. 

The cook nodded slowly, and looked blankly 
at the form that now moved only with the roll- 
ing of the ship. A look of triumph crept into 
the eyes of the sailor. 

'* You're no American." he said, and with 
narrowed eyes watched for the eilect of his 
words. " An American gun just killed your 
brother." 



176 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

Al gazed uncomprehendingly at his com- 
panion. 

" Listen," continued the sailor. " We can 
get into the hold and open the sea-cocks." 

Al set his teeth and stood rigidly as the ship 
rolled. The'German sailor continued. 

" We can open the sea-cocks," he repeated. 
" The ship'll sink. We can get away. We'll 
be picked up. Come." He rose to his feet 
and stood waiting for the cook's decision. 

Al pulled himself together with the strength 
of a sudden determination. He looked at the 
stiffening body of his brother, then glanced up 
at the sailor. 

*' Yes, come," he answered, slowly. 

Together they stepped out onto the deserted 
deck, and the sailor's eyes twinkled with devil- 
ish glee at winning the American over. 

" This way," said the cook, and he led the 
sailor forward and down a hatchway. He 
turned and entered a door. The sailor fol- 
lowed, peering around to see that they were 
not followed. 

The captain looked up from a report he was 
writing. 

" I brought this man around," said the cook, 
slowly. "But the other," — his voice broke 
— " my brother — is dead." 

— Hawthorne Daniel 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 177 
CONSOLATION 

In summer we suffered from dust and from 

flies, 
The flies in our rations, the dust in our eyes. 
An' some of our fellows, they dropt in the 'eat, 
But the Boche, oh, the Boche, was perspirin' — 

a treat ! 

There were times when we longed for a tankard 

o' beer, 
Bein' sick of warm water — our tipple out 'ere, 
But our tongues might be furry an' throats like 

a flue, 
Yet it's nothing to wot the fat Boches went 

through. 

Now the winter is 'ere with the wet an' the cold, 
An' our rifles an' kit are a sight to be'old, 
An' in trenches that's flooded we tumble and 

splosh, 
*' Wot cheer?" we remarks. "It's the same 

for the Boche." 

If we're standin' in two foot o' water, you see, 
Quite likely the Boches are standin' in three; 
An' though the keen frost may be ticklin' our 

toes. 
Go doubts that the Boches' 'ole bodies is froze? 



178 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

Are we sleepy or sick or 'arf dead for a meal? 
Just think of 'ow underfed Boches must feel 1 
Are we badly in need of a shave an' a wash? 
Consider the 'orrible state of a Boche! 

So 'ere's philosophy simple and plain, 
Wotever we 'ates in the bloomin' campaign, 
'Tis balm to our souls, as we grumble and cuss, 
To feel that the Boches are 'atin it wuss. 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 179 
OFF DUTY 

The night is full of magic, and the moonlit dew- 
drops glisten 

Where the blossoms close In slumber and the 
questing bullets pass — 

Where the bullets hit the level I can hear them 
as I listen, 

Like a little cricket concert, chirping chorus in 
the grass. 

In the dug-out by the traverse there's a candle- 
flame a-winking 

And the fireflies on the sandbags have their 
torches all aflame. 

As I watch them in the moonlight, sure, I can- 
not keep from thinking, 

That the world I knew and this one carry on 
the very same. 

Look! A gun flash to the eastward I 

'' Cover, matey! Under cover! 
Don't you know the flash of danger? You 

should know that signal well ; 
You can hear it as it's coming. There it 

passes; swooping over. 
There's a threat of desolation in the passing of 

a shell." 



i8o PATRIOTIC PIECES 

Little spears of grass are waving, decked with 

jewels iridescent — 
Hark! A man on watch is stricken — I can 

hear his dying moan — 
Lies a road across the starland near the wan 

and waning crescent, 
Where a sentinel off-duty goes to reach his 

Maker's Throne. 

— Patrick MacGill 



FROM THE GREAT WAR i8i 
LITTLE MOTHER 

Permission of the Publishers, The Stewart & Kidd Co., 
Cincinnati 

Little mother, little mother, with the shadows 

in your eyes. 

And the icy hand of Fear about your heart, 

You cannot help your boy prepare to make his 

sacrifice, 

Unless you make yours bravely at the start I 



He is training, as a million others train; 
He is giving what the others give — their 
best; 
Make him feel your faith in him, though your 
troubled eyes grow dim; 
Let him know that you can stand the acid 
test! 



Because he^s joined the colors — he's not dead! 

Because he's found his duty, he's not lost! 
Through your mother-love, my dear, keep him 
steady, keep him near, 
To the soul he loves — your soul — what- 
e'er the cost ! 

You aren't alone in heartaches or in doubts; 
All mothers feel this burden, newly coined; 



1 82 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

Then call your trembling pride to your colors 
— to your side — 
" Be a sport ! " and make him glad that he 
has joined! 

Little mother, little mother, with the shadows 
in your eyes. 
And the icy hand of Fear about your heart, 
There is this that you can do: "Play the 
game," there honor lies, 
Now your boy and country need you — do 
your part ! 

— EvERARD Jack Appletqn 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 183 
THE MOTHER ON THE SIDEWALK 

By permission of the author and the publishers, Reilly & 
Britton, Chicago 

The mother on the sidewalk as the troops are 

marching by 
Is the mother of Old Glory that is waving in 

the sky. 
Men have fought to keep it splendid, men have 

died to keep it bright, 
But that flag was born of woman and her suf- 
ferings day and night; 
'Tis her sacrifice has made it, and once more 

we ought to pray 
For the brave and loyal mother of the boys that 

go away. 
There are days of grief before her, there are 

hours that she will weep, 
There are nights of anxious waiting when her 

fears will banish sleep ; 
She has heard her country calling and has risen 

to the test, 
She has placed upon the altar of the nation's 

need her best. 
And no man shall ever suffer in the turmoil of 

the fray 
The anguish of the mother of the boy who goes 

away. 



1 84 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

You may boast men's deeds of glory, you may 

tell their courage great, 
But to die is easier service than alone to sit and 

wait. 
And I hail the little mother, with the tear 

stained face and grave 
Who has given the Flag a soldier — she the 

bravest of the brave. 
And that banner we are proud of, with its red 

and blue and white, 
Is a lasting tribute holy to all mothers' love of 

right. 

— Edgar A. Guest 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 185 
SINCE YOU WENT AWAY 

Since you went away, every gay sailor lad, 

Every khakl-clad soldier I see. 
Has a place in my heart, and a share in my 
thoughts 

And belongs, just a little, to me. 
He's a comrade of yours, and is bearing his 
share 

Of the burden that rests upon you ; 
Both are doing the work that a nation has set 

For its glorious manhood to do. 

Since you went away, I have entered within 

A sisterhood — mystic and great — 
Of women who've learned the great lesson, to 
give 
And are learning another, to wait. 
But I strive, like the rest, not to doubt or to 
fear; 
To murmur, or sigh, or complain, 
But to trust in His might, and to know, by His 
grace, 
That your sacrifice cannot be vain. 

Since you went away, every fold of the flag 

Has a message that's tender and true; 
It has always meant liberty, freedom, and 
right; 



1 86 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

It now means my country — and you. 
Your honor is part of the deep azure field, 

Your courage of each crimson bar, 
And the soul of you, shining, resplendent and 
clear, 
Is a part of each beautiful star. 

— Allison Brown 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 187 
MARCHING AWAY 

There is a shrill of bugles, 

There is a sound of drums, 
And down the wide and sun-lit street 

A stately column comes 
In answer to the bugles' call, 

And to the call of drums. 

The sons of loving households. 

Bright youths from shop and store 

Who leave their own familiar work, 
For tasks untried before, 

They go with sturdy feet and hands, 
And study war's grim lore. 

Our smiles and tears are mingled; 

" Dear God, be kind," we pray; 
*' Be good to these our bonny lads 

Who enter in the fray ; 
No care of ours can be their shield, 

They go so far away." 

Our sons were kindly gentlemen, 
They were not taught to slay. 

But, bred to ways of law and peace, 
They saw their life's bright day 

Unfolding fair before their eyes. 
With joys of work and play. 



1 88 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

But sudden, swift, the bugles' cry 
And drum-beats fill their ears; 

They make no protest at the call, 
And trample down their fears. 

And we — we watch them march away 
And smile against our tears ! 

— Emma A. E. Lente 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 189 
THE PRAYER 

Permission of the publishers, Geo. H. Doran Co.j 

New York 

You say there's only evil in this war ^ — 

That bullets drive out Christ? If you had 

been 
In Furnes with me that night . . . what would 

you say, 
I wonder? 

It was ruin past all words, 
Horror where joyous comfort used to be,. 
And not clean quiet death, for all day long 
The great shells tore the little that remained 
Like vultures on a body that still breathes. 
They stopped as it grew dark. I looked about 
The ghastly wilderness that once had been 
The village street, and saw no other life 
Except a Belgian soldier, shadowy 
Among the shadows, and a little group 
Of children creeping from a cellar school 
And hurrying home. One older than the 

rest — 
So little older ! — mothered them along 
Till all at once a stray belated shell 
Whined suddenly out of the gloom, and burst 
Near by. The babies wailed and clung to- 
gether. 
Helpless with fear. In vain the little mother 
Encouraged them — " But no ! you mustn't cry, 



190 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

That isn't brave, that isn't French ! " At last 
She led her frightened brood across the way 
To where there stood a roadside Calvary 
Bearing its sad indomitable Christ — 
Strange how the shells will spare just that ! I 

saw 
So many . . . There they knelt, poor inno- 
cents, 
Hands folded and eyes closed. I stole across 
And stood behind them. '' We must say our 

prayer — 
Our Father which art in heaven," she began, 
And all the little sobbing voices piped, 
*' Hallowed be Thy Name." From down the 

road 
The Belgian soldier had come near. I felt 
Him standing there beside me in the dusk. 
" Thy kingdom come — 

" Thy will be done on earth 
As it is In heaven." The irony of it 
Cut me like steel. I barely kept an oath 
Behind my teeth. If one could name this earth 
In the same breath with heaven — what is hell? 
Only a little child could pray like this. 
*' Give us this day our daily bread — " A 

pause. 
There was no answer. She repeated it 
Urgently. Still the hush. She opened wide 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 191 

Reproachful eyes at them. Their eyes were 

open 
Also, and staring at the shadowy shapes 
Of ruin all around them. Now that prayer 
Had grown too hard even for little children. 
*' I know — I know — but we must say the 

prayer," 
She faltered. " Give us this day our daily 

bread, 
And — and forgive — " she stopped. 

" Our trespasses 
As we forgive them who have trespassed 

against us." 
The children turned amazed to see who spoke 
The words they could not. I too turned to 

him. 
The soldier there beside me — and I looked 
Into King Albert's face ... I have no words 
To tell you what I saw . . . only I thought 
That while a man's breast held a heart like 

that, 
Christ was not — even here — so far away. 
— Amelia Josephine Burr 



192 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

ON ACTIVE SERVICE 

For the bloke on Active Service, w'en 'e goes 

across the sea, 
'E's sure to stand in terror of the things 'e 

doesn't see, 
A 'and grenade or mortar as it leaves the other 

side 
You can see an^ 'ear it comin', so you simply 

steps aside. 
The aeroplane above you may go droppin' 

bombs a bit, 
But lyin' in your dug-out you're unlucky if 

you're 'it. 
We'n the breezes fills your trenches with has- 

fixiatin' gas, 
You puts on your respirator an' allows the stuff 

to pass. 
W'n you're up against a feller with a bayonet 

long an' keen, 
Just 'ave purchase of your weapon an' you'll 

drill the beggar clean. 
W'n man and 'oss is chargin' you, upon your 

knees you kneel, 
An' catch the 'oss's breastbone with an inch or 

two of steel. 
It's sure to end its canter, an' as the creature 

stops 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 193 

The rider pitches forward, an' you catch 'im as 

'e drops. 
It's w'en 'e sees 'is danger, an' 'e knows 'is way 

about 
That a bloke is blamed lucky if 'e's knocked 

completely out. 
But out on Active Service there are dangers 

everywhere. 
The shrapnel shell and bullet that comes on you 

unaware, 
The saucy little rifle is a perky little maid, 
An' w'en you've got 'er message you 'ave done 

your last parade. 
The four-point-five will seek you from some dis- 
tant leafy wood, 
An' taps you on the napper an' you're out of 

step for good. 
From the gun within the spinney to a sniper up 

a tree 
There are terrors waitin' Tommy in the things 

'e doesn't see. 

— Patrick MacGill 



194 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THE AMERICANS COME! 

Permission of Munsey's Magazine, New York 

" What is the cheering, my little one? 

Oh, that my blinded eyes could see ! 
Hasten, my boy, to the window run. 

And see what the noise in the street may be. 

" I hear the drums and the marching feet; 

Look and see what it's all about ! 
Who can it be that our people greet 

With cheers and laughter and joyous 
shout?" 

*' There are men, my father, brown and strong, 
And they carry a banner of wondrous hue; 

With a mighty tread they swing along; 
Now I see white stars on a field of blue ! " 

** You say that you see white stars on blue? 

Look, are there stripes of red and white? 
It must be — yes, it must be true ! 

Oh, dear God, if I had my sight ! 

" Hasten, son, fling the window wide ; 

Let me kiss the staff our flag swings from 
And salute the Stars and Stripes with pride. 

For, God be praised, the Americans come I *' 
— Elizabeth A. Wilbur 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 195 

TO A CANADIAN AVIATOR WHO 

DIED FOR HIS COUNTRY 

IN FRANCE 

Permission of the author and Scribner's Magazine, 

New York 

Tossed like a falcon from the hunter's wrist, 

A sweeping plunge, a sudden shattering noise. 

And thou hast dared with a long spiral twist 

The elastic stairway to the rising sun. 

Peril below thee and above, peril 

Within thy car; but peril cannot daunt 

Thy peerless heart : gathering wing and poise, 

Thy plane transfigured, and thy motor-chant 

Subdued to a murmur — then a silence,^ — 

And thou art but a disembodied venture 

In the void. 



But Death, who has learned to fly. 

Still matchless when his work is to be done, 

Met thee between the armies and the sun; 

Thy speck of shadow faltered in the sky; 

Then thy dead engine and thy broken wings 

Drooped through the arc and passed in fire, — 

A wreath of smoke — a breathless exhalation. 

But ere that vision sealed thine eyes. 

Lulling thy senses with oblivion ; 

And from its sliding station in the skies 

Thy dauntless soul upward in circles soared 



196 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

To the sublime and purest radiance whence it 
sprang. 

In all their eyries eagles shall mourn thy fate, 
And leaving on the lonely crags and scaurs 
Their unprotected young, shall congregate 
High in the tenuous heaven and anger the sun 
With screams, and with a wild audacity 
Dare all the battle danger of thy flight; 
Till weary with combat one shall desert the 

light, 
Fall like a bolt of thunder and check his fall 
On the high ledge, smoky with mist and cloud, 
Where his neglected eaglets shriek aloud, 
And drawing the film across his sovereign sight 
Shall dream of thy swift soul immortal 
Mounting in circles, faithful beyond death. 
— Duncan Campbell Scott 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 197 
AMERICA GOES IN SINGING 

" The American troops will fight side by side 
with the British and French troops and the Star 
Spangled Banner will float beside the French 
and English flags In the plains of Plcardy." 

This w^as the ofliclal answer to General 
Pershing's words to General Foch : 

" All that we have are yours, to dispose of 
them as you will." 

When Pershing stood at the tomb of Lafay- 
ette and uttered the briefest and finest war 
address that has been delivered, " Lafayette, 
we are here!" he spoke for the American 
spirit, to the soul of the French people. Our 
country from sea to sea ratified the message 
of a soldier unafraid. It was 

" The voice of one for millions, 
In whom the millions rejoice 
For giving their one spirit voice." 

Even so with Pershing's offer of our whole 
armed force at once, to beat back the tidal 
wave of the flagellated myrmidons of Prussia. 
The country that we love will send into No 
Man's Land, to reclaim It for God and from 
the Devil, its first hundred thousand, its million, 
and then its millions more, if they are needed, 
to assure the triumph of the right and the salva- 



198 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

tion of the world from the glutted maw of the 
Beast of Beasts, of Moloch in a death's-head 
helmet. 

Our men, our sons and brothers, march on 
singing toward the fray. The Irish poet 
Arthur O'Shaughnessy has told us that 

" Three with a new song's measure 
Can trample an empire down." 

Terrible Indeed Is the striking power of a 
singing army — as Cromwell's psalm-slnging 
Ironsides proved. Mile after mile of men In 
khaki, tramping the measured cadence down 
the miry highways to the front, are lifting in 
lyric unison their battle anthems — " Where 
Do We Go From Here, Boys?" and "Over 
There " and " Pack Up Your Troubles in Your 
Old Kit Bag." These swarming caravans 
moving toward the firing line like Inspired 
clockwork, without confusion — these rumbling 
guns outlandlshly bespotted to hide them from 
the prying eyes aloft — these motor-trucks and 
rocking, rumbling wagons roofed with brown, 
and above all and before all, these marching 
columns of men pressing forward to relieve 
the warworn thousands In the trenches with 
their Irrepressible youth and strength and high, 
joking courage — all this means for us at home 
and for us who are over there a shining dream 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 199 

brought true, a great day dawning for 
America, a saving grace for our country where 
liberty, so dearly bought by the blood of our 
fathers, is forever cherished and forever sancti- 
fied. 

America is in the fight because she " can do 
no other." Our men could not endure to wait 
an hour longer. " Watchman, what of the 
night? '* was the interrogation that ran from 
armed camp to armed camp. Their brothers 
beneath the Union Jack and the Tricolor were 
in the thick of the hardest battle ever waged 
on earth, and were falling and dying. With 
a righteous indignation burning in their heart, 
and on their lips the song of the happy warrior 
who vindicates the right, our men march for- 
ward into battle — their faces to the enemy — 
their love with us at home — their glory safe 
with God. 

— Public Ledger J Philadelphia 



200 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THE KID HAS GONE TO THE 
COLORS 

By permission of the author 

The Kid has gone to the Colors, 

And we don't know what to say; 
The Kid we have loved and cuddled 

Stepped out for the flag to-day. 
We thought him a child, a baby. 

With never a care at all; 
But his country called him man-size — 

And the Kid has heard the call. 

He paused to watch the recruiting, 

Where, fired by the fife and drum, 
He bowed his head to Old Glory, 

And thought that it whispered " Come ! " 
The Kid not being a slacker. 

Stood forth with patriot-joy 
To add his name to the roster 

And, God! we're proud of the boy! 

The Kid has gone to the Colors; 

It seems but a little while 
Since he drilled a schoolboy army 

In a truly martial style. 
But now he's a man, a soldier. 

And we lend him a listening ear; 
For his heart is a heart all loyal, 

Unscourged by the curse of fear. 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 201 

His dad, when he told him, shuddered; 

His mother — God bless her ! — cried ; 
Yet, blest with a mother-nature 

She wept with a mother-pride. 
But he whose old shoulders straightened 

Was granddad — for memory ran 
To years when he, too, a youngster, 

Was changed by the Flag to a man ! 

— William Herschell 



202 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

RHEIMS 

It was a people's church — stout, plain folk 

they, 
Wanting their own cathedral, not the king's. 
Nor prelate's, nor great noble's. On the walls. 
On porch and arch and doorway — see — the 

saints 
Have the plain people's faces. That sweet 

Virgin 
Was young Marie, who lived around the 

corner, 
And whom the sculptor knew. From time to 

time 
He saw her at her work or with her babe, 
So gay, so dainty, smiling at the child. 
That sturdy Peter — Peter of the keys — 
He was old Jean, the Breton fisherman, 
Who, somehow, made his way here from the 

coast 
And lived here many years, yet kept withal 
The look of the great sea and his great nets. 
And John there, the beloved, was Etienne^ 
And good Saint James was Frangois — 

brothers they, 
And had a small, clean bakeshop, where they 

sold 
Bread, cakes, and little pies. Well, so it went I 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 203 

These were not Italy's saints, nor yet the gods, 
Majestic, calm, unmoved, of ancient Greece. 
No, they were only townsfolk, common people. 
And graced a common church — that stood and 

stood 
Through war and fire and pestilence, through 

ravage 
Of time and kings and conquerors, till at last 
The century dawned which promised common 

men 
The things they long had hoped for ! 

O the time 
Showed a fair face, was daughter of great 

Demos, 
Flamboyant, bore a light, laughed loud and 

free, 
And feared not any man — until — until — 
There sprang a mailed figure from a throne. 
Gorgeous, imperial, glowing — a monstrosity 
Magnificent as death and as death terrible. 
It walked these aisles and saw the humble ones, 
Peter, the fisherman, James and John the shop- 
keepers. 
And Mary, sweet, gay. Innocent and poor. 
Loud did it laugh and long. " These peaceful 

folk! 
What place have they in my great armed 

world? '' 



204 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

Then with its thunderbolts of fire it drove 
These saints from out their places — breaking 

roof, 
Wall, window, portal — and the great grave 

arch 
Smoked with the awful funeral smoke of doom. 

Thus died they and their church — but from 

the wreck 
Of fire and smoke and broken wood and stone 
There rose a figure greater far than they — 
Their Lord who dwells within no house of 

hands ; 
Whose beauty hath no need of any form ! 
Out from the fire he passed, and round him 

went 
Marie and Jean, and Etienne and Frangois, 
And they went singing, singing, through their 

France — 
And Italy i — and England — and the world ! 
— Margaret Steele Anderson 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 205 
MATEY 

(Cambrin, May, 1915) 

Not comin' back to-night, matey, 
And reliefs are comin' through, 
We're all goin' out all right, matey, 
Only we're leavin' you. 
Gawd! it's a bloody sin, matey, 
Now that we've finished the fight, 
We go when reliefs come in, matey. 
But you're stayin' 'ere to-night. 

Over the top is cold, matey — 
You lie on the field alone. 
Didn't I love you of old, matey. 
Dearer than the blood of my own? 
You were my dearest chum, matey — 
(Gawd ! but 3^our face is white) 
But now, though reliefs 'ave come, matey, 
I'm goin' alone to-night. 

I'd sooner the bullet was mine, matey — 

Goin' out on my ov/n, 

Leavin' you 'ere in the line, matey. 

All by yourself, alone. 

Chum o' mine and you're dead, matey, 

And this is the way we part. 

The bullet went through your head, matey. 

But Gawd ! it went through my 'eart. 

— Patrick MacGill 



2o6 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THE OHIO MEN 

Ohio of the grassland and the waving, billowy 

plain, 
Ohio of the rolling hills cloaked in the golden 

grain ; 
Ohio, whose pure beauty now needs no poet's 

pen — 
Ohio sends to fight for God, her brave Ohio 

men. 

They are marching, marching, marching from 

the grassland and the wheat. 
And down the cities, clicking, goes the tramp of 

myriad feet; 
Men are marching, marching, marching, for 

the good old State again — 
God bless them and God keep them, the good 

Ohio men! 

Men march from out Ohio as they marched 

from her before. 
To lay their good lives down for God out there 

at Freedom's war. 
To lay their yesterdays away and all that's 

sweetly been; 
And let us not forget them now, the good Ohio 

men! 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 207 

Their mother, Great America, now calls her 

sons to fight, 
And from Ohio comes the bugle like a cry from 

out the night; 
They are loyal, they are heroes, and they need 

no poet's pen — 
God bless them and protect them now, the 

brave Ohio men ! 

While all the world is bleeding, they will bear 

the torch of light; 
They will battle now for Liberty, for Justice, 

and for Right. 
And the old, old blood of heroes caught in the 

young, young sod 
Goes marching off across the world to fight for 

Peace and God. 

They are marching, marching, marching from 

the grassland and the wheat. 
And down the cities, clicking, goes the tramp of 

myriad feet; 
Men are marching, marching, marching from 

the good old State again — 
God bless them and God keep them, the brave 

Ohio men! 

— Edwin Curran 



2o8 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

A CAROL FROM FLANDERS 

In Flanders on the Christmas morn 
The trenched foemen lay, 

The German and the Briton born — 
And it was Christmas day. 

The red sun rose on fields accurst, 
The gray fog fled away; 

But neither cared to fire the first. 
For it was Christmas day. 

They called from each to each across 

The hideous disarray 
(For terrible had been their loss) : 

" Oh, this is Christmas day! " 

Their rifles all they set aside. 

One impulse to obey; 
'Twas just the men on either side. 

Just men — and Christmas day. 

They dug the graves for all their dead 

And over them did pray; 
And Englishman and German said: 

" How strange a Christmas day! " 

Between the trenches they did meet 
Shook hands, and e'en did play 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 209 

At games on which their hearts are set 
On happy Christmas day. 

Not all the Emperors and Kings, 

Financiers, and they 
Who rule us could prevent these things — 

For it was Christmas day. 

O ye who read this truthful rime 
From Flanders, kneel and say: 

God speed the time when every day 
Shall be as Christmas day. 

— Frederick Niven 



2IO PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THE RIDERS 

There is a rumbling in the graves 

All up and down the land. 
There is a lifting of the graves 

And a murmur on every hand. 
A murmur in the green grass, 

A stirring in the mound, 
A gasping and a questioning, 
A shouting and a challenging, 
A calling of voices, voices, voices, 

Out of the sacred ground. 

There is a stirring In the graves 

All up and down the land. 
And a rising of ghostly shapes 
From the hillside and the seaside. 

From the red loam and the sand. 
Old men, young men, brave men and strong! 
Old men, young men, with anger on their 
lips! 
Men who perished moaning, and men who died 
with a song. 
On the hillcrest and the ryefield and the decks 
of battered ships I 

Up from the fields of Valley Forge, 

Ghosts and ghosts and ghosts ! 
Up from the hills of Gettysburg, 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 211 

Hosts and hosts and hosts ! 
Old men, young men, out of the earth they 
rise, 

Defenders, defenders! 
With their spirits in their eyes! 
The ghosts are not an army 

With sword and gleaming gun. 
They are riders like the rider 

Who rode to Lexington. 
Hark! The hoofs in the night, 
And the cry. Awake ! 
What shapes in the dark? 
Hark! 

Again, Awake! 
Ghosts are riding! 
What fingers shake 
The doors, and rattle 
The windows? 
Awake! 
Battle ! 

Riders, riders, 
On plain and steep! 
Awake, oh, ye that sleep ! 
Awake, Maine! 

Stir from your slumber, Alabama ! 
Awake from dreams of ease. 
Glittering coasts ! 
Awake, Wisconsin! 
On your highways 



212 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

Are ghosts! 

Texas, bestir your sons I 

Oregon, make haste ! 

Riders ! 

Our dead have arisen! 

From graves have they sprung up I 

From the hills, 

From the shores. 

They come, the valiant. 

And knock at our doors ! 

Ghosts of our fathers ! 

Dismayed! 

That we they died for 

Should tremble, should bluster, 

Should falter, 

Be afraid! 

What hoof-beats, Montana? 

Illinois, what cries? 

Up from your battle-graves, 

Virginia, they rise ! 

What eyes light the darkness? 

What voices command? 

Mark them, Mississippi ! 

Be glad for them, Rio Grande! 

Leap up from your beds 

When they come. New England! 

Hark ! Down the misty valley — 

Awake ! 

Nearer ! Hoof-beats ! 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 213 

Awake ! 

Meet on the Common ! 

The world's at stake ! 



On the highways they ride, our fathers ! 

They knock at our doors in the night! 
Have you no ear for Justice? 

Have you no hands for the Right? 
Up from your beds, you dawdlers ! 

Say not we died in vain. 
Out of the rusty scabbard 

Whip the spirit again! 

The ghosts are not an army 

With sword and gleaming gun. 
They are riders like the rider 

Who rode to Lexington! 
And every sash they rattle, 

And every door they shake; 
And to every goal-forgetful soul 
To every slumbering, laggard soul. 

They cry. Craven, awake ! 

— Herman Hagedorn 



214 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THE CONVERSATION BOOK 

I 'ave a conversation book: I brought It out 
from 'ome, 

It tells the French for knife and fork, an' like- 
wise brush and comb; 

It learns you 'ow to ast the time, the names of 
all the stars, 

An' 'ow to order oysters an' 'ow to buy cigars. 

But there ain't no shops to shop in, there ain't 

no grand hotels. 
When you spend your days In dugouts doln' 

'olesale trade in shells; 
It's nice to know the proper talk for theaters 

an' such — 
But when it comes to talkin', why, it doesn't 

'elp you much. 

There's all them friendy kind o' things you'd 

naturally say. 
When you meet a fellow casual-like an' pass the 

time o' day — 
Them little things as breaks the ice an' kind o' 

clears the air, 
Which, when you turn the phrase book up, why, 

them things isn't there I 

I met a chap the other day a-roostin' In a trench, 
*E didn't know a word of ours nor me a word o' 
French ; 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 215 

An' 'ow it was we managed, well, I cannot 

understand. 
But I never used the phrase book though I 'ad 

it in my 'and. 

I winked at 'im to start with; 'e grinned from 
ear to ear; 

An' 'e says " Tipperary " an' I says " Sou- 
venir," 

'E 'ad my only Woodbine, I 'ad 'is thin cigar, 

Which set the ball a'rollin', an' so — well, there 
you are ! 

I showed 'im next my wife an' kids, 'e up and 

showed me 'is. 
Them funny little Frenchy kids with 'air all in 

a fizz; 
** Annette," 'e says, " Louise," 'e says, an' 'is 

tears began to fall ; 
We was comrades when we parted, but we'd 

'ardly spoke at all. 

'E'd 'ave kissed me if I'd let 'im; we 'ad never 

met before. 
An' I've never seen the beggar since, for that's 

the way o' war; 
An' tho we scarcely spoke a word, I wonder 

just the same 
If 'e'll ever see them kids of 'is — I never ast 

'is name ! 



2i6 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

THE SOLDIER'S MOTHER 

After all, there is no love like a mother's 
love. She loves her unborn babe with a tender, 
wistful, yearning love which makes the anguish 
of her sufferings a joy unspeakable. When the 
little one is placed in her arms exultant joy 
fills her heart. The wee baby rules this mother 
heart, and the growing child is her first thought 
in the morning hour and her last prayer as she 
rests her weary head upon her pillow. She 
is generally reticent and undemonstrative, but 
her boy is the joy of her heart and the glad- 
ness of her life. This wise and loving mother 
knows her boy must have companionships in- 
timate and dear, and she does not interfere. 
Her boy becomes a man, and gradually he 
forms his circle of friendships, and as time goes 
on he is overwhelmed by the mystery and glad- 
ness of a great love. His mother understands, 
and with a tender light in her eyes she with- 
draws herself just a little more. Then comes 
the joy and bewilderment of the growing family 
and new chambers are unlocked in her " boy's " 
heart, but the mother, now growing old, under- 
stands, and there is no jealousy in her heart. 

She sits alone much these days, but her 
memory is busy, and her heart holds a secret 
of that love which began before her boy was 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 217 

born — that boy who is now a great man with 
a home and babies of his own. How sweet 
and holy and God-like is mother's love ! 

In the great and devastating war no one can 
ever estimate the suffering of the mothers of 
all lands. With complete self-forgetfulness 
they have said farewell to their boys. The 
women of Sparta were not braver than the 
women of the warring countries of to-day. 
And now our American mothers must lay their 
sons on the altar of their country, and they will 
do so with a heroism unsurpassed by the 
mothers of any country or any generation. 
Others will suffer, but the suffering of our 
mothers will be as sweet and holy and God-like 
as their love. 

If it pleases God, many of our noble young 
men will come unscathed through the dragon- 
guarded gates of war. Flushed with victory, 
decorated with badges of honor, grown strong 
with burden-bearing, these boys will come home 
amid the plaudits and tears of welcome hosts. 
Mother, may your boy be among those who 
will thus come home! But If not, you will re- 
member that It will be his glory to die for his 
beloved country. You will rejoice that he 
went forward with undaunted mien and un- 
flinching eye, and that, like Nathan Hale, he 
was sorry that he had but one life to lose for 
his country 1 _ Watchman Examiner 



2i8 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

IN PRAISE OF RIGHTEOUS WAR 

I am coming not in a weakling's verse, with a 

milksop's feeble whine, 
With uplifted hand and with soft-voiced drawl, 

aghast at the battle-line; 
But I come to praise the fight that is fought for 

the sake of Truth and Right, 
The fight that is fought for God and for Home, 

that will mate the Right with Might. 

Yes, patience is good, and humility, too, and so 

is the pipe of peace; 
But the time will come when forbearance ends, 

and your sugary smiles must cease ; 
Then either your hand must grip at your gun 

and brighten the sword from its rust, 
Or your slavish neck must bend to the yoke, and 

your mouth must chew the dust. 

(You must fight for the fire that toasts your feet, 

for the roof that shelters your head. 
For the herd that yields you Its milk or meat, 

for the field that gives you bread; 
You must fight for bed, you must fight for 

board, for the woman you love the best. 
And, oh, you must fight with a tenfold will for 

the baby at her breast. 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 219 

When a mad dog comes down your village 

street, with the green foam in his jaws, 
Do you greet him with Bibles and hymn-books, 

and lovingly bid him pause? 
When a rattlesnake rises amidst your path, 

alert with its fiery sting, 
Do you pet him, and pat him, and wish him 

well, and a song of welcome sing? 

When a big-armed bully among the Powers 

says the folk of a little land 
Must sprawl in the dirt and confess to a crime 

that never besmirched their land, 
Do you blame that people that rises up a pigmy 

ready to fight, 
A David aroused, with only a sling, defying 

GoHath's might? 

When a vain war-lord with a swollen head, in- 
flamed with a brute desire. 

Through a little State that was lapped in peace 
comes tramping with blood and fire 

Despoiling the fields and looting the towns — 
do you blame that blameless state 

For rousing in Godlike righteous wrath and 
hitting with righteous hate ? 

And war is the great Arouser; it silences whim- 
pering tongues; 



220 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

It toughens the muscles, it hardens the fist, and 

brings fresh air to the lungs; 
Though it comes with torch and it strikes with 

steel, and shorten's life's petty span, 
That life it exalts to heroic heights, so a man is 

twice a man. 

Yes, patience is good, and so is peace; but he is 

not worthy of good. 
Who will not rush forth when the spoiler comes 

to defend it with his blood; 
When that spoiler comes with his bandit crew to 

shatter with shot and shell, 
Let the good man rise, with a fervent prayer, 

and give him hell for hell ! 

— Walter Malone 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 221 
YOUR LAD, AND MY LAD 

Permission of the author 

Down toward the deep-blue water, marching to 

throb of drum. 
From city street and country lane the lines of 

khaki come; 
The rumbling guns, the sturdy tread, are full of 

grim appeal. 
While rays of western sunshine flash back from 

burnished steel. 
With eager eyes and cheeks aflame the serried 

ranks advance ; 
And your dear lad, and my dear lad, are on 

their way to France. 



A sob clings choking in the throat, as file on file 
sweep by. 

Between those cheering multitudes, to where 
the great ships lie; 

The batteries halt, the columns wheel, to clear- 
toned bugle-call, 

With shoulders squared and faces front they 
stand a khaki wall. 

Tears shine on every watcher's cheek, love 
speaks in every glance. 

For your dear lad, and my dear lad, are on their 
way to France. 



222 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

Between them, through a mist of years, in 
soldier buff or blue, 

Brave comrades from a thousand fields watch 
now in proud review; 

The same old Flag ; — the same old Faith — 
the Freedom of the World — 

Spells duty in those flapping folds above long 
ranks unfurled. 

Strong are the hearts which bear along Democ- 
racy's advance, 

As your dear lad, and my dear lad, go on their 
way to France. 

The word rings out; a million feet tramp for- 
ward on the road. 

Along that path of sacrifice, o'er which their 
fathers strode. 

With eager eyes and cheeks aflame, with cheers 
on smiling lips, 

These fightng men of '17 move onward to their 
ships. 

Nor even love may hold them back, or halt that 
stern advance. 

As your dear lad, and my dear lad, go on their 
way to France. 

— Randall Parrish 



FROM THE GREAT WAR 223 

BOTH WORSHIPED THE SAME 
GREAT NAME 



Jack Smith belonged to the Y. M. C. A. 

Pat Sheehan to the K. of C. 
Both marched away 'neath the flag one day 

To fight for the Land of the Free. 
Jack bowed his head as he said a prayer, 

Pat knelt with his parish priest. 
Then they stood up square to go " over there 

To grapple the Hunnish beast. 



n 



Now their altar rails were not the same, 

Though they camped in the same old shack. 

But just the same 'twas the same Great Name 
They worshiped, both Pat and Jack. 

While Jack stood straight as he humbly prayed, 
Pat knelt at a candled shrine ; 

But the same great God heard each whispered 
word 

That barkens to yours and mine. 

They didn't agree, did Jack and Pat, 

On methods of worship true; 
But what of that? They went to the mat 

For the old Red, White and Blue. 
They knelt apart, but 'twas side by side. 

They fought for their homes and right 



224 PATRIOTIC PIECES 

And the blood-red tide of the kaiser's pride 
They battled by day and night. 

Each bullet its billet has got, they say, 

And always will find some mark. 
And Pat and Jack in a trench mud black 

Lay side by side in the dark. 
Their life's blood ebbed with a failing tide 

As they came toward the Great Unknown; 
But hand in hand from that far-off land 

They knew they were not alone. 

So " over the top " to the Glory Side, 

Where never is war nor tears; 
Where the true and tried in God's love abide 

With nothing of doubts nor fears. 
And the God they met as they entered in 

Where the souls of all men are free. 
Was the God of Jack's Y. M. C. A. 

And the God of Pat's K. of C. 



